July 22, 2020 – West Bend, WI – The Cyclone fencing is up around the old Fleet Farm and Tri-Par building, 1637 W. Washington Street, in West Bend.
Rick with Robertson Brothers Environmental was kind enough to allow a last look inside the building. He said there has been a bit of a delay because the electricity inside the building hasn’t been turned off yet.
Demolition crews will drop an excavator on site this Thursday or Friday and then next Monday the gas tanks will be removed.
Terry Becker with You Know You Are from West Bend…. posted some great history about the original northeast corner of the Fleet Farm building. His story is below …
West Bend History is Fleeting!
The northeast portion of the old Fleet & Farm building dates back to March 1, 1949, the date the old “West Bend Pilot” newspaper was sold to brother investors Alan and Robert Pick along with their nephew Andrew J. Pick Jr.. The new endeavor, “The Pilot Press Inc.”, combined newspaper publishing and commercial printing all under one new roof built on W. Cherry (now Washington) Street during their first year at the helm. Tragedy also struck that first year when the young, vibrant Andrew Pick Jr. age 35 died of a cerebral hemorrhage on January 20, 1950 just three days after becoming father to his new baby daughter. The grueling newspaper portion of the business merged with the West Bend News in 1954. The commercial printing portion of the business continued on until 1959 when it was sold to Alfred Ramsthal’s Serigraph Sales. Equipment and files were moved to Serigraph’s new plant on Indiana Avenue, thus ending the final chapter of the “Pilot.” The vacant building would soon become home to West Bend’s “Fleet & Farm”!
Please be sure to view the first few comments on this post for a few additional detailed historical newspaper clippings.
Click HERE for more details.
