"One down!"



The foreman supervising the removal of the columns on the Saline County Courthouse might be foregiven for showing a bit of jubilation as the first column was gently placed on the courthouse lawn Wednesday morning, Aug. 12.

Some of the county officials in the small crowd watching the column removal also breathed a sigh of relief.



County and project officials were not sure whether the aged and crumbling sandstone columns could be removed intact for repair and restoration. And the crew doing the job had never done one quite like this.



"There is no manual for any of this," the foreman said.



But workers using two forklifts and a bucket lift slowly and deliberately removed the capital atop the first column, moving inch by inch until the piece was clear of the column. Then they attached a sling to the column itself and repeated the painstaking procedure.

By late Wednesday afternoon, all four columns on the north entrance were down, and none of them appeared to have suffered any damage in the process.



"I think they did a fabulous job," said Lucy Fletcher, chairman of the Saline County Preservation Committee, who watched the removal of one of the columns. "It came out just exactly like they wanted it to."



Crews were working Thursday morning, Aug. 13, preparing to remove the columns from the south entrance.



Fletcher said once the columns are all removed, work can begin on the wing walls and stairs, which will also be removed and rebuilt.



The entrances will be changed some in the process.

The light poles currently located on the ends of the wing walls will be removed -- they were added during a previous renovation and were not considered sufficiently historical.



New light poles will have a design more consistent with the poles around the square and will be separate from the wing walls. The ends of the walls will have concrete caps like they did prior to the addition of the light poles.



The original sandstone bases for the columns will be replaced by concrete bases, Fletcher said.



The original bases were long ago reinforced with concrete, so state historical register officials agreed to allow concrete bases be installed as part of the renovation project.



At the Saline County Commission meeting Thursday, Aug. 13, Northern District Commissioner Norvelle "Brownie" Brown asked the commission to approve a change order for electrical work being done during renovation.



Southern District Commissioner Richard "Dick" Hassler said the electrical contract was able to save money by rearranging and combining exit and emergency lighting that had been separate in the original design.



Brown said the county had faced a bill of more than $2,100 for the work but now had a credit of more than $1,900 thanks to cost-saving steps.