Print this story |
E-mail story |
iPod friendly | Bookmark this
What is this?
‘Do I hear $100?’
Estimated 600 people turn out for RTC auction
Published 10:23 a.m., July 8, 2009
Hundreds of people visited the Regional Treatment Center Tuesday for the auction of former city and campus property.
For many bidders, the purchases were relatively small. Telephones, dish racks, fire extinguishers and other items sold from trailers parked near the old incinerator building. Inside buyers had their choice of wheelchairs, wardrobes, board games and more spread across the former dining area and gymnasium.
Roxanne Johnson bought a volleyball net intended for water use. She’ll put it out at her cabin on West Battle Lake, while the small fan she acquired will accompany a student to college.
Kim Charest of Battle Lake also bought something for one of her children: a stretcher compacted into a thin, rectangular case.
“My daughter’s a nurse so she’s getting it as a gift,” Charest joked.
After 27 years as an RTC employee, Jane Heintz returned to the campus Tuesday for only the second time since the late 1990s.
“It was home away from home for me,” she said, standing in the gymnasium between rows of tables and cabinets.
Heintz, who holds a rummage sale every two years, bought five $12 folding tables she’ll use for future sales of her own.
Other purchases were slightly larger. Jerry Ward of Montevideo nabbed a 1972 fire truck complete with ladders, hoses and other equipment for $2,750.
“I’ve got 10 grandchildren I’m going to go out and have fun with,” he said. “They come out to my farm to have fun.”
For other buyers, auction purchases were more utility-based. Dennis Barton owns Barton Bus and Auto Sales in Jamestown, N.D., and is a member of the city’s volunteer fire department. He came to Tuesday’s event specifically to buy a 1988 Chevy 30 mini-bus once used by Fergus Falls firefighters — and he got it.
Small fire departments don’t often qualify for the kind of federal grants that support larger departments, Barton said. The mini-bus, which contains racks for storing oxygen tanks, is something the Jamestown Fire Department probably couldn’t afford to buy new, he said.
Guy Taylor, Fergus Falls assistant building inspector, coordinated the auction with the help of other city staff, Aasness Auctioneers and a Sentence to Serve crew. He estimated 500 to 600 people were at the RTC around noon Tuesday, when vehicles like the fire truck, a recycling truck and a Bombadier track vehicle went up for bid.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE THIS STORY?
