URBAN ARCHAEOLOGIST: Brian Pape's Stubborn Streak
By Mike Martin
In restoring the old Diggs meat-packing plant on Fay and Hinkson Streets in the North Central Village, architect Brian Pape has faced down his decades-long careers' subbornest project.
"I'm exhausted," Pape recently told me. Coordinating three construction companies building tens of thousands of square feet of new space in a historic brick warehouse ravaged by termites, fire, weather, and age "has been one heckuvan ordeal," Pape said.
And why not? Turns out he's been tugging the timbers on not the Diggs Packing Warehouse, at least not originally. No, Brian Pape has gone even farther back into Columbia's history, near the turn of the century, to discover that what he's really been tackling these long and arduous months was the Wright Brothers Mule Barn, circa 1910.
How fitting!
The mule is Missouri's state animal:
http://www.cape.k12.mo.us/blanchard/hicks/...0Mule/Mules.htm
The most famous mules in the world may be MU mules Hilda and Louise:
http://www.cvm.missouri.edu/org/muleclub/H...ouise%20bio.htm
MU animal science professor C. Melvin Bradley was probably the world's foremost expert on mules:
http://muarchives.missouri.edu/c-rg3-s71.html
And Columbia's Democrats call themselves "Muleskinners"
http://boonecountydems.net/muleskinners
And MU is -- whoa -- the first two letters in "mule." So to Pape, we say good job on that stubborn old mule barn.
"It looks amazing!" I told him on a recent visit to the building. "I know," he said. "I could almost cry."
Source:
http://board.columbiatribune.com/index.php?showtopic=3988