3.5 million pounder is ready to roll in Idaho

PRESTON, Idaho — It has all the makings of an award-winning TV ad: Hook a pick-up truck to the rigging under a 3.5-million-pound building, start the engine and "pull" the huge load down the street.

That's just the scenario historic preservationists in this quiet town are hoping for, as work crews prepare to move the old Oneida Stake Academy.

"We're always looking for funds to help with the restoration" of the soon-to-be community center, said Don Hampton, vice president of the Oneida Stake Academy Foundation. "So we tossed out a question to one of our local auto dealers here" about working up a contract with Dodge for rights to film what would appear to be a pick-up moving the massive structure.

As of yet, Hampton said he hasn't heard from Dodge corporate types. But he's holding out hope they, or executives from some other truckmaker, will want to sign a contract before the building begins its three-block crawl this week.

While many may expect to see something much larger than a pick-up truck pulling the building along, in reality the 43 motorized and wheeled jacks that it now rests on will move the structure down the street without any kind of "pulling" involved. The controls for rotating the building four different times and moving it along the street are housed on the moving platform itself.

During the past four months, the 1,800-ton building has been literally sawn off its foundation, its masonry reinforced with gunite and each floor secured by a compression system designed to keep it intact during the move. It now sits on the motorized jacks, each with eight tires about the size of those on a large pick-up truck. Lindsay Moving and Rigging of Seattle has prepared the building for the move and workers will return Monday for final preparations.

The big move

The two-story academy is so tall and wide that to move it down the town's streets will require that Utah Power disconnect electrical lines along the moving route, leaving residents temporarily without power, Hampton said. "And as we go down the road, it will stretch from curb to curb, so people will be temporarily unable to get to the front doors of their homes."

Preston city officials have been concerned that the weight of the structure may find previously unknown weak spots in the asphalt paving along the street, according to Logan architect Joseph Linton, who has volunteered hundreds of hours to support the moving and restoration project.

But the weight has been distributed among the 344 tires that will roll down 100 East to Oneida Street, meaning each individual tire shouldn't exert more pressure than those on a large moving van. Only time and experience will tell if those predictions bear out.

In the meantime, several large insurance policies have been put in place to indemnify the city and the academy's supporters in case there is some kind of liability as a result of the move, Linton said.

Yet, the inconvenience — and the fact that the town still has to raise another $1.5 million for restoration work — doesn't seem to phase Hampton, whose roots are forever tied to the massive stone structure.

Oldest academy

Built from 1890-1894 by Hampton's grandfather, German immigrant John Nuffer, it cost between $20,000 and $40,000 to construct and was one of several schools formed by early Latter-day Saints. It is believed to be the oldest of 35 such academies The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built from 1888-1909 at scattered locations around Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, Mexico and Canada.