Barna d Building gets its 'R' back

WALLACE — Without a keen eye for detail, both residents and visitors of the Silver Valley may have never noticed the grey steel letters that identify the Barnard Building in Wallace — much less see that the second "R" is missing.

Located on Cedar Street just west of Harry Magnuson/Samuels Park, current owners Katie and Jeremy Watterson explained that the Barnard Building was built in 1907 and is known for being the photography studio of Thomas Barnard and Nellie Stockbridge. The University of Idaho Library states that the duo took more than 200,000 photos between 1893 and 1964 that depicted various aspects of life in the Wallace/Kellogg mining area — many of which can be seen online.

The Wattersons acquired the building in mid-2019 and have wondered what happened to the missing R since that time.

"From asking around, the R has been missing for about 30 years," Katie said. "It has been gone for a long time."

Initially, the couple had hoped that the sheetmetal letter had simply fallen off the wall and was awaiting discovery atop the awning below. After their son checked and turned up nothing though, their hopes of finding it dwindled. Katie had no way of knowing then that the R would end up appearing later on in the form of the "best Christmas present" anyone has ever given her.

The gift giver, fellow Wallace property owner Ali Koski, presented the letter to Katie on Saturday after connecting some dots in her head.

In June 2020, Koski purchased the Gearon Building — built in 1928 and located just over a block away from the Barnard Building on the west side of Sixth Street between Bank and Cedar streets. Built by P.J. Gearon, the building has had a long history of having housing spaces on its top floor and retail stores on its bottom floor.

In July, Koski got to cleaning the place up by starting with the bottom floor.

"The first order of business was cleaning out all the stuff leftover in the basement," she said. "Sorting through and figuring out what we wanted to keep."

With the building's history of hosting multiple businesses, Koski came across dozens of curiosities in the basement, such as old mannequins and clothing from when Rullman's Menswear was there. Among the many odds and ends discovered was a roughly 14-by-10-inch gray metal R.

"I thought it was associated with Rullman's Menswear or Bill Rullman, who owned the building at one point," Koski said. "So I just assumed that the R went to the Rullman name and put it in a pile with other letterings and fixtures."

The Barnard R would remain in this pile until Dec. 23, the day Koski put the pieces together when driving home from the hardware store.

"I was driving back from Ace Hardware, took a detour down Cedar Street, and I just happened to glance at the Barnard Building and noticed that the word 'Barnard' was on the building. I didn't even notice that it was there before," she said. "So I looked up and was like 'Oh! Barnard! There it is!… Weird, it's missing the R? Oh my god! It's missing the R!'"

Following a quick eyeball comparison with her letter and the others on the building, Koski knew that she had the Barnard R. With this discovery, she met up with Katie three days later and presented it to her.

While the question of where the R is now has been solved, the mystery of how it got to the Gearon Building basement remains unsolved.

"Maybe somebody who managed the Gearon Building had something to do with it, we're not really sure," Katie said. "We have no idea how it got in the Gearon's basement."

The Wattersons plan to reinstall the R to the Barnard Building in the spring of 2021 and hold an "R party" to commemorate the occasion. In the meantime, the R will be on display at the Metals Bar in Wallace.