LOLO — It is not every day you see a building transported down a major highway.
However, if you were in Lolo at midnight, you saw history in the making as the Old Lolo School building made a major move.
"It is the only thing left of old Lolo," Holt Heritage Center’s Ramona Holt said. "It's very necessary that we saved it."
Months of planning went into getting the building down the block to the Holt Heritage Center.
"My goodness, we started at 12 a.m. and we ended at 1 a.m. Now, how great can that be? The only holdup was dropping the power lines, but the guys did a great job, you know, and Lolo was probably only out of power for maybe an hour," Holt said.
Power lines were shifted and traffic stalled as the 40-foot-tall building moved down the road.
"Weaving in and out of those traffic signals. Getting around those quick — those fast corners and then pulling here into the approach," Holt said.
Donations totaled $50,000 to cover moving the building and related costs.
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"There were 20 schoolbooks that we found underneath the school when we broke through the foundation right in the crawlspace. And fortunately most of them were savable," Holt said.
Soon, it will be a museum that will transport people back in time to old Lolo.
"It'll really be a statement for the area and have a lot of artifacts of school days," Holt said.
It will take a few years for renovations, but the Holt family is glad the structure will remain a staple in the community.
"The whole community will be able to enjoy it. We'll be using it for meetings and weddings, and you know, get-togethers for the community," Holt said.
