Part V - Government, a supplement to the Big Rapids Pioneer Newspaper. Used with permission.



HISTORIC JAIL OLDEST GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE IN BIG RAPIDS
By Jim Bruskotter - Managing Editor

They had to deal with the opposition of neighboring church groups and all the red tape involved with government grants.

They had to deal with a search for community funding and the development of support groups.

They had to deal with administrative changes at the city level that actually threatened the use of previously approved federal dollars.

They worked thousands of unpaid hours to save the only 19th century governmental building left in Big Rapids and then to plan and follow through on the renovation of Mecosta County's Old Jail as a community service building.

The Friends of the Old Jail, emerged in 1974 as a small group calling themselves the Save the Jail Committee when the old county structure was threatened with demolition to make room for parking at neighborhood churches.

They mushroomed into a preservation commission and hundreds oif volunteers and donors who have worked and given over the years to restore and utilize the historic old structure.

Today a marker stands in front of this example of Queen Ann architecture ay 220 South Stewart St., to signify that it is a state historic building.

The building, complete with its hip roofs, twin turrets and stained glass windows, served as the county's jail from the time of its construction in 1893 until 1965 when a new jail in the courthouse block was opened.

In 1993, members of the Big Rapids Preservation Commission combined with a tenant of thus community building, to celebrate 100 years of service to the area -- aservice as the home to 17 sheriffs and ther families, service as the lock-up for thousands of inmates; service as a teen center, an office building and a meeting place; and service as the host to weddings, anniversaries, concerts, church services and countless other social activities.

The Preservsation Commission and the Big Rapids Co-Op sponsored an open house for the Grand Old Lady on July 15, 1993 where Anna Young, then president of the Mecosta County Historical Society, presented a certificate to a city official, marking the beginning of the building's second century of service to the area.

The presentation followed a concert on the lawn of the Old Jail with Don Flickinger directing the Ferris State University Summer Band.

And, in September of 1993, the celebration continued when the Old Jail was honored again during the Heritage Festival.

Maxine Sofoulis, whose father, Judd Arnold, served as a five-term Mecosta County Sheriff from 1939-1949, serves on bth the Preservation Commission and the Mecosta County Historical Society. She is one iof the favored few to remember the Old Jail as home, having lived there with her family when her father was sheriff.

And, today, more than a decade after the Grand Old Lady entered her second centennial of service to the county, Sofoulis is still giving tours of the facility and telling anyone willing to listen what it was like to live and work in what is now the city's most historic structure.

Meanwhile the Preservation Commission founded in 1975 as part of the efforts to save the Old Jail continues as the proprietor, administrator and restorer of the historic structure.

The preservation organization was established by the Big Rapids City Commmission after the governmental body accepted ownership of the Old Jail in the fall of 1975 from the Mecosta County Board of Commisioners.

The Preservation Commission's bylaws relate that it "is organized for the purpose of promotion, initiating, and directing historic preservation efforts in the city of Big Rapids."

And to that end the Commission, originally under the chair of the late Nancy Batdorff, has worked to restore the Old Jail with a clear message from the city commission that the city's general funds were unavailable.

In thiose early days, especially leading up to the nation's celebration of the Bicentennial in 1976, grants were readily available for historic restoration, but today, says Sofoulis, public funds are harder to come by, especially for maintaining an historic structure.

Nowadays the Commission is even more dependent on continuing public donations and rental income to make ends meet, she says.

But, in those early days after the Old Jail was deeded to the city and the Preservation Commission was organized in October of 1975, the nation was in the midst of planning for its 200th birthday party and, with the help of Ferris State University (college then) professor Richard Santer the Old Jail project won rapid approval for thousands of dollars in grant money from the State Department of Commerce for historic preservation.

The same was true with a similar proposal for federal Community Development Block Grant monies, but changes in the local administrator of the program and the city manager resulted nurmerous delays and an actual federal officials threat to cancel the city's entire $120,000 grant for the fiscal year of 1976-77.

But those and other difficulties aside, the Preservation Commission and countless volunteers have persevered in their goal to renevate the historic structure for continued use by the public.

And those efforts begun three decades ago continue yet today as the many friends of the Grand Old Lady are working hard today to raise thousands of dollars to repair the building's slate roof.

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