 PROUD OLD PLACE ONCE A MANSION .....Shreds of faded wallpaper swing from the ceiling. The floor is a mosaic of broken glass windows and missing boards and vines have crept through the cracks. The proud house above the Luckiamute in Falls City lost its last occupant a few years back. ....."He came to the door one night and said, 'I'm afraid, I'm afraid of being alone'" said Mrs. Lance Smith, a neighbor of "Park" Calkins, who last lived in the huge house. "I called his family in Cloverdale, and in a few hours they came to get him. That's the last I saw of him. He died a few years later in the Dallas Rest Home." .....According to the Smiths, 95-year-old Calkins was spry most of the years he lived in the house. ....."He used to get on like a 16-year-old," Lance Smith commented. "He'd walk up and down the hill here with lots of energy." ....."In the house they had a piano that came around the Horn," said Mrs. Smith, "and a big wooden ball on the post at the bottom of the stairway. It was a nice house once." .....About four years ago an architect from Corvallis, Gathercoal, bought the house. He had plans to restore it. A short time later he died of a heart attack, and the old place passed into the hands of a younger relative. .....Eva Burbank, a Falls City resident for all of her 64 years, remembers the occupant of the house when she was a child. "A Mr. Tooze lived there," she said, "and he also owned a three-story mercantile store that was once in town. .....The house was probably built around 1900, local historians conjecture, but by whom is a mystery. .....In spite of historic origins, the demise of the house is underway. Falls City Council voted recently to tear it down, calling it a public safety hazard. ....."We're working on a contract to dismantle it," said Bruce Peet, City Administrator. .....The abandoned house is already stripped of fancy window frames and hardware. "Somebody came along and took parts of it," said Peet. .....The site of the house, after the relic is gone, would be ideal for a city park, Peet said. |