2008 Manning City Park Shelter House Project

The original shelter house construction began in 1964 when the Manning Firemen dug the footings by hand.

George Peters far right, to left of George is Bonnie Joens, Wayne Snyder is the Manning police chief in the middle background.

Manning Fireman LaVern Olsen digging the footing in 1964.
Merlyn Irlbeck remembers using pickaxes to get through the rocks and cinders left over from the old Milwaukee Railroad Right of Way that ran across this area before 1913.

WANT A PARK
Manning Monitor, October 22, 1914
Mayor Ed Farrell and Councilman William Ohde went to Chicago Monday to interview the C. M. & St. P, officials in regard to securing the old Milwaukee right-of-way for a city park. The railroad men gave the city officials reassurance that the town would have the first chance to secure this land when vacated, at a very small rental. A representative of the company will be in the city within the next sixty days to close the deal. As the city is not prepared to purchase the land the company proposed a 99-year lease of the ground for park purposes.
This will be about the last chance Manning will have to secure a park near the center of the town and the Commercial Club and the Council sent Messrs. Farrell and Ohde to Chicago to see if it was possible secure the ground. Several parties have made a bid for the land but the company stated they rather would rather turn it over to the town than to private individuals. They also assured the city officials that when their representative came to the town and railroad company would have no trouble in agreeing on terms.

January 11, 2008

View from the west.


View from the east

Gene Steffes saved the main structure of the shelter house and moved it to his storage area.


March 25, 2008, view from the west.

The Manning City Council awarded this project to Bohlmann Inc. of Denison ($99,250). Croghan Construction of Manning bid $99,659. The shelter house will be 50x40 feet.
To help complete this project the Manning Betterment Foundation requested extra funding and $27,000 was received from the Warren Timmerman Charitable Trust.

May 1, 2008, view from the west.

Mark Johnson is the General Manager of Bohlmann Inc. He was a former Ag & FFA teacher at Manning. K&D Construction is doing the day to day work shown below.


American Concrete Company in Manning delivered concrete for the footings May 1.

Next steps of the project

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