As a boy, some 60 years ago, Carlin Sperry sat on top of the wooden fence at the St. Joseph stockyards as he and his father sold their livestock at the market.
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Eventually, the stock yards were torn down. Two years ago a demolition crew dismantled the buildings and fences and Carlin, who is in the furniture making business, bought the lumber.
The lumber sat in storage for about a year. Carlin knew he wanted to make something to keep from it, but inspiration didn’t come along until last fall when he and his wife Peggy took a trip to New Mexico. They stopped at a small truck stop, where Peggy spotted an 1880’s bar in a back room. The Sperrys took pictures and got measurements, determined to build one just like it.
This past winter with the help of an Amish carpenter and using Peggy’s drawings, they set to work on the pine lumber from the stockyards.
"It’s black and really ugly to start," said Peggy. "It doesn’t look like anything I’d want to eat off of."
It took the Amish carpenter three weeks to build the bar and a week for Carlin, Peggy and two employees to sand, stain and finish it.
It’s not ugly anymore.
"After much sanding and finishing it has a great patina," said Peggy. "Old wood is so warm and has so much character."
At first the Sperrys didn’t have any particular plans for the bar except as a conversation piece inside their store, Carlyle’s Pastimes in Jamesport. Eventually it found its function as an old-fashioned ice cream bar, complete with old-fashioned dishes.
The work surface and facing on both the front and back bar is made from the old stockyard’s lumber. Carlin has also built tables, islands and counter tops for his customers.
"We’ll probably use all the lumber except the scrap pieces," said Peggy. "People have their name on a list."
The bar is one piece and the back cabinet is one piece. It is 20 feet long and nine feet tall. The columns of the back piece are solid wood, not hollow. The day the bar was to be moved from the warehouse to the store proved a real challenge. The local wrecker hauled it on his flatbed truck.
"Eight men helped and it was just about all they could do to lift the pieces," said Peggy.
Once it was in place, the Amish carpenter reflected, "I always wanted to build something out of the ordinary, now I think I have."
Little did Carlin know when he sat on the fence as a boy, that he would one day own a piece of fine craftsmanship made from that same lumber.