Wooden warehouse on Ashley

Question Corner: January 2012

by Grace Shackman

posted 1/25/2012

Q: There’s an old wooden warehouse on Ashley near Madison that has loading doors on its second floor. How did they get stuff up there?

A: The warehouse was built after WWII by Gill Lumber. The ­company had its own railroad siding where freight cars were parked. Using a forklift, workers unloaded the cars and raised the wood to the second floor.

Fingerle Lumber bought Gill in 1966 and ran it as Arbor City Lumber for seven or eight years before combining the two operations. The building was then used as storage for A & L Auto Parts and the GT Products / Eaton factory. As part of the factory’s conversion to Liberty Lofts, the warehouse was sold in 2006 to a company called Main and Madison LLC. Soon afterward the city approved a plan to tear down the warehouse and build offices on its site, but that project has yet to materialize.   

[Originally published in January, 2012.]