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Friday, March 29, 2024

Amish workers use hand tools to undo stock pens

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ANDERSON, Ind. (AP) _ Jacob Stoltzfus, his brothers and a neighbor have been hard at work lately, and they have a lot more to do.

“We started the 21st of March and it’ll probably take till the first or second week of May,” Stoltzfus said as he took a break inside the abandoned Emge stockyard on West Eighth Street. The Stoltzfuses are tearing down the old stock pens behind the meat-packing plant _ about an acre of open-air wooden stockades under aluminum roofs.

And they’re doing it the Amish way _ by hand, with the only power supplied by their muscles.

It’s slow going and hard work done with sledgehammers and pry bars that also takes considerable care. After all, the wood that the Stoltzfuses pull from the stockyard is going to be resold and might someday be used for someone’s barn, log home or hardwood floors.

“We usually do construction work, but it’s been slow this winter, so I picked this up,” said Stoltzfus, who owns J&B Builders in Fountain City, north of Richmond.

Working with him at the Emge site were his brothers Ivan and Alvin, and neighbor David Stoltzfus, all wearing traditional blue shirts, black trousers and straw hats.

You might have seen the Amish crew at work elsewhere around town recently. They reclaimed wood from two other city demolitions this year: the former Pelletrino’s and Caboose taverns and the former Anderson Antique Mall, all south of 14th Street between Meridian and Main streets.

As is customary for many Amish, the Stoltzfuses do not drive motorized vehicles. They have hired a driver to carry them to Anderson each day of the project for a commute that’s more than 100 miles back and forth.

The crew is subcontracted by Davis Excavating, which offered to demolish the Emge stock pens for $37,777. The city got two other bids for the same job, for approximately $89,000 and $189,000, respectively, said Anderson Board of Public Works Chairman Greg Graham.

“The credit for the wood helps keep down our cost of demolition,” he said. “We thought it was a terrific bid. … It works out well for them, and I know it works out well for us.”

Todd Davis of Davis Excavating in Anderson said working with the Amish crew has been “fabulous. They do excellent work, and they’re meticulous at what they do. It’s been a good working relationship.”

Davis worked with the Amish crew on a prior city demolition and realized it had the makings of a partnership, and changed the way the company looked at bidding on the Emge stockpen tear-down.

“We would normally take an excavator to it, but with times like they are, you have to think outside the box,” Davis said. Such a job would be faster, but far more expensive, and the contract allowed time to accommodate the Amish way.

When the pens are removed, there will be more room for the city’s composting operation presently located on the site. The city also is awaiting a report on how much it would cost to tear down the Emge packing plant, but it’s unclear when money to remove it might be available.

___

Information from: The Herald Bulletin, http://www.theheraldbulletin.com

Copyright Ā© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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