By JOE VANDELAARSCHOT Daily News
The Richfield Parks and Recreation Committee on Wednesday night heard plans on the possible construction of a blacksmith shop in the Historical Park along Highway 164.
Richfield Historical Society President Buzz Carr was not at Wednesday’s meeting, but said Thursday the group realizes they need to do a lot more work and gather a lot more information before they can present village officials with the proper proposal.
“It’s something we’ve talked about for some time and wanted to gauge the interest of the village in such a possible proposal,” Carr said. “We’d like to have a historical building out there that we can have built in such a way to allow us to have demonstrations and classes regarding blacksmith work.”
Carr said some members of this group are also members of the Upper Midwest Blacksmith Association and they have been supporting the idea.
According to Healy, the committee needs more information and a more definite proposal from the historical group. “They want to see how this fits into the park’s master plan and they want to see where it could be built, who would pay for it and how much it would cost,” Healy said. “So there’s much more to be discussed and it’s far from being anything close to an approved project.”
Carr said the group has “a lot of work ahead of us.” “It’s something that would be a great thing to have out there,” Carr said. “It would certainly add something more to the park to fit in with what we already have out there.”
Healy said the committee took no action on the proposal other than asking for more information and to see how the project would fit into the park’s master plan that the Historical Society is responsible for developing and maintaining.