The pioneers: Wooster Beach and Emmeretta Augusta Marsh Wayt.
(courtesy Wooster Bertram Wayt)
(courtesy Wooster Bertram Wayt)
Wooster Bertram 'Bert' Wayt outside his grandfather's monument company which is now the Sac City Museum, June 11, 2009.
1202 Hobbs Street, Sac City. Home of Jim and Mary Kincade, originally owned by the Moody family. Jim inherited the home from his father and has lived in it all his life. Home is located right next door to the home of Walter Earl Wayt, Bert's father.
1208 Hobbs, Sac City, boyhood home of Bert Wayt. Originally built in the 1920s and remained in the family until ~1942, when it was sold to purchase farm machinery. (Bert entered the Army in 1941 and had planned to serve out only the obligatory year hitch, but then the U.S. formally entered the War after the attack on Pearl Harbor, so Bert was called to active duty.)
Boyhood home of Bert Wayt.
300 5th St., Sac City, home of Wooster Beach and Emeretta Augusta Marsh Wayt. Built in the early 1920s.
Home of Wooster Beach and Emeretta Augusta Marsh Wayt.
Home of Wooster Beach and Emeretta Augusta Marsh Wayt.
515 Leonard St., Sac City, home of Bertram M. and Velma Wayt Grable.
Home of Bertram M. and Velma Wayt Grable.
1002 Main St., Sac City, home of Leon Reginald and Mary Blaine Lamoreaux Wayt. Older home than that of Leon's siblings and father, the building has gone through a number of changes over the years. For example, it's not hard to see that the rooms on the lower level covered with ivy were added to what was once a long open porch.
Home of Leon Reginald and Mary Blaine Lamoreaux Wayt.
The old Sac City train depot, across Main street from the W.B. Wayt Monument Company. Both the Milwaukee Railroad and the Northwestern Railroad came into Sac City back in those days. Interestingly, even though it is now a pizza place, it has kept the name 'The Depot.'
615 W. Main St., Sac City, site of the W.B. Wayt Monument Company, now the home of the Sac City Museum.
Out building next to the main building of the monument company built right next to the (now gone) railroad tracks. This building was used to unload large granite slabs that Mr. W.B. Wayt would ship after personally overseeing purchases made in the United States (Vermont, the Dakotas, and Minnesota) as well as Scotland. Evidently, Scotland had the more desireable stone.
Side view of the monument company building showing 'Monuments.' It was exciting to see the company logo with the Wayt family name on a building that was built so long ago (completed in 1913).
Site of the original W.B. Wayt Monument Company on 5th St. in Sac City (now a bank parking lot).
Photo of the original W.B. Wayt Monument Company on the corner of 5th and Audubon Streets in Sac City. Without the railroad running directly by, it makes one wonder how they ever maneuvered those massive granite slabs!
(photo courtesy Sac City Museum)
(photo courtesy Sac City Museum)
Photo of the 'new' monument company building as it was nearing completion in 1913. Note the trellis structure over the monuments. This was used to hoist and lower the finished monuments in and out of the working areas inside the building.
W.B. Wayt's desk, still inside the office where he worked.
Original safe inside the office. Note the name painted at the top and the wonderful wood trim.
Inside the safe, now used as a storage closet for the museum. Note the window near the top of the photo. This is for the rest room located right beside the safe and was installed when the building was built! I guess they believed that even a robber wouldn't stoop that low.
Hoist inside the back part of the building used to maneuver the granite slabs. Note the railcar-style wheels and 'track' built into the upper wall.
Elevator to the working areas (sand blasting rooms, cut & lettering rooms, finishing area) from the first floor. There was a basement and an upper floor, as well.
View up the elevator shaft. The thick rope on the left was the used to hoist and lower the elevator - no powered units back then! (I imagine that it probably required more than one person to raise or lower the elevator when a significant ly sized granite slab was loaded onto it!)