Sedgwick – The past and the future of this fading northeastern plains town is now a pile of bricks. It was here on Main Avenue, the only paved road in Sedgwick, where the 87-year-old Jankovsky building met its end under heavy snow last week.
Now, those who live here must face the reality that their town is not simply growing old; it has fallen to pieces.
The vacant, dilapidated building once housed an automotive dealership, a movie theater, a roller-skating rink and a meat market. Even as an empty shell in the town of 191 people, it was a security blanket, a brick edifice that not only signified Sedgwick’s heritage but carried hope for the future.
As long as that building at 107 Main Ave. held on, there was a chance for better days.
“When the roof dropped, it felt like an earthquake,” said the incoming mayor, Patrick Woltemath, who grew up in the town off Interstate 76 near the Nebraska border. “When I saw the back of that roof, I just thought, ‘What else can go wrong?”‘
That, of course, is a rhetorical question in a town that already has lost its gas stations, grocers, doctors, lawyers and virtually every other paying job besides bartender, farmer and teacher.
But the reality didn’t hit some residents until March 21, when they saw the two-story building sag and bow at awkward angles after a foot of snow fell. The roof and rear wall collapsed hours later.
Woltemath now wonders if the loss will finally inspire residents to save Sedgwick or if he will inherit a gravesite that was once a town.
When Sedgwick was a bustling agriculture hub of 2,500 residents in the 1920s and ’30s, folks from 20 miles away came to shop and talk. The Jankovsky building was the main attraction, with its dances and community meetings. Nearly every person in town has a childhood memory of it.
But those memories are fleeting, punctuated this week when a front-end loader took down the rest of the fallen building. People stood in the street, staring at the rubble.
Bricks and chipped paint
“I think we were 10 years too late to save it,” said a glum Monty Kinoshita, 47, as he stood outside the town bar Wednesday night and looked down the street toward the strewn bricks.
Of the dozen or so buildings on Main Avenue, there are only five businesses operating; two sell liquor. The rest is a town hall and a hodgepodge of clapboard, chipped paint and unfulfilled promises.
“We’re trying to survive,” Kinoshita said. “In an agricultural community, there’s nothing else to do.”
Residents said they will do what it takes to bring Sedgwick back to working order, but doing so has proven more difficult.
The town’s accountant warned trustees last year that Sedgwick could become insolvent within three years, Woltemath said. The 86-year- old water system is in need of repair and will cost $800,000 to fix.
Hoping for a cornerstone
The problem was addressed only after the state threatened to shut off the tap. “Nobody (cared) about the condition of this town,” said Woltemath, a trustee.
Across the street from the pile of bricks, 55-year-old Lupe Casias bought the two-story Farmers State Bank for $49,000 and turned it into a $35-a-night, 16-room inn, hoping it would become a cornerstone in the town’s redevelopment.
Geraniums grow in the brightly lit main room downstairs, and bedrooms are decorated in a palette of baby blues, wispy pinks and soothing yellows.
Her rooms are filled during parades and the annual Harvest Festival, which bring hundreds of people into town. The business so far, she said, has been successful.
“The street is beautiful, but it needs a lot of love,” said Casias, who also is a teacher in Sterling, 40 miles southwest of town. “There’s apathy here, because people … think that this is life, that this is how it’s always been.”
Buildings on the strip can be had for as little as $2,000. Six years ago, the owner of the Jankovsky building paid $500, plus an $80 sewer bill, for it and the one-story building next door.
There were plans for a store or a museum of some sort, but nothing ever happened.
Still, after the snow hit, town officials tried to save the building, making cellphone calls and sending faxes to plead with state agencies for help.
Disaster area declared
But Woltemath said multiple requests went unheeded, even as the town struggled with phone and power outages and had to temporarily close R.D.’s bar, the liquor store inside the bar and a neighboring hair salon. Trustees declared Main Avenue a disaster area.
Some state officials said they had not heard of Sedgwick’s problems until days after the storm, but the Colorado Department of Health and Environment said that it talked to a county commissioner March 22.
The message must not have been relayed to the Sedgwick trustees, said Paula Ross, an environmental protection specialist with the department.
No promises made
Kevin Kuretich, a regional coordinator for the state’s Department of Local Affairs, said Colorado’s Historic Fund may be able to at least partially rebuild the 1919 building, though no promises have been made.
Donald Hill, the owner, said he could never afford to rebuild it on his own.
“I don’t even have the $2,000 to clear off (the bricks),” the gray-bearded man said minutes before nailing boards across the blown-out windows of the empty neighboring store. “I don’t know what to do.”
Down the street, a handful of townsfolk sat on a cooler of beer and drank, casting furtive glances toward Hill and his family, who, they claim, never attempted to fix the structures.
Lucy Price, who owns a restaurant a few miles away, walked the sidewalk toward Hill. Tears began to stream down the 68-year-old woman’s face.
“Oh, my God, it’s gone”
“There used to be free shows upstairs and basketball,” Price said, looking at the bricks. “I came into town and thought, ‘Oh, my God, it’s gone.”‘
Hill’s mother, at her son’s side, fixed her eyes on the ground.
“We tried, we really did,” she told Price.
“I know you did,” Price said, wiping away tears. “I know you did.”
Staff writer Monte Whaley contributed to this report.
Staff writer Robert Sanchez can be reached at 303-820-1282 or rsanchez@denverpost.com.
