Shots from the past, Ely bandshell construction in Whiteside park, Ely MN

I was going though some old pictures the other day and came across these. They are some shots someone took of the Ely Bandshell in Whiteside Park as we were putting it together.

The timeliness of coming across these pictures now is interesting… Over this winter or in the spring we will be doing some needed repair work on this building as well as the other two log buildings in the park so the bandshell had been on my mind a bit lately.

I don’t know the exact year, must be mid to late 1990s… All I know is that is a much younger me in those pictures…

That is Richard Howe on the loader. He was one of the few guys with a loader truck that was crazy enough to do some of the things we asked of him. This project was fairly simple though, middle of town, flat ground all around the building and no snow. All of these things are rare for so many of the projects I have worked on over the years.

Mike in the foreground, me on the far end, setting the log in place and getting it seated properly.

The top logs with the beam going across. I’m sure we were pausing to discuss something important here.

Richard was a great loader operator, but I’m not so sure I would be getting that close if this were happening today.

The building as it stands today. Needs a new roof and re-staining. There are some logs that have begun to rot because of the lack of protection from the weather. I don’t know anything of the design process on this building, I think I was actually subcontracting the construction from Bissonnett Log Construction who had the main contract with the city… I can’t really remember. There has been some controversy I have heard about the positioning of it looking in to the sun in the evening, (that is the reason for the tarp hanging in front), and getting the brunt of the weather blowing in from the south west, but at that time I was not involved in any political stuff in Ely so I really don’t know… Looking back from where I sit now… well, let’s just say I’m not surprised things didn’t happen quite the way they should have. It is the nature of humans to form councils and committees and boards that seem to have no real purpose other than to insure that things don’t go quite the way they should… But enough of that. The bandshell has been heavily used over the years. I have sat in the grass on many occasion listening to music there on beautiful summer days that can only happen in Ely… Whiteside park continues to be a beautiful place in the middle of town.