Push underway to save original Lodi City Hall building
LODI — A push to save the original Lodi City Hall is moving forward with the help of some financial donations.
It's an old brick building you might miss on Main Street, but to firefighter Anthony Moore, it's much more than that.
"To see one of the buildings that my relatives worked in at one point is super cool," he said. "Hopefully, when we're done with this, it will look like it did when they were here."
Aside from being the first city hall building in Lodi, it's also the first fire station. It's essentially been used as a storage building for the city since 1991, Scott Hamilton said. Hamilton is with the historical society and wants to save it.
"The plan is to completely gut it," he said. "So take it down to the bricks and the beams and we would start from scratch."
It would serve a pair of functions.
"The convergence of the city wanting to do something with the building, the historical society needing a museum and the firefighters union needing a union hall all came together in the last couple years," Hamilton said.
So they raised money and paired with the city, but still have a ways to go.
"It will be something more people will get around to, especially with the historical society partnering with us," Moore said.
It's a monument to what came before in a city where those echoes are still felt deeply.
"Anything from ringing the bells when we're driving or the fact that the engines are red, the old brick buildings — it all ties back into the history of the fire service," Moore said.
So far, the historical society has raised around $200,000 from around the community but still has more to go. They are soliciting donations to help with the renovation.
