 Well, the Sheboygan Armory was unique. It was pretty awe-inspiring to me. The very first time I came here was to see the Harlem Globe Trotters. That was the place to be on Saturday nights, twice a winter, when north and south were playing basketball against each other. My first rock and roll concert was at the Sheboygan Armory, and that was a rat when I was in eighth grade. The Sheboygan Redskins played in a national professional basketball circuit from 1938 to 1951. Prior to 1942, they played their games at the Eagles Club, a 1,300-seat facility on New York Avenue. The closest competitor was the Oshkosh All-Stars, but all other teams in the league were in large cities, having large arenas. Sheboygan had no such place adequate for support of a professional team. The team directors proposed construction of a municipal auditorium suitable for basketball and armory for use by the several local units of the Wisconsin National Guard. The work projects administration or WPA was still active in the last days of the Great Depression. With the influence of Charles Broughton, Sheboygan Press editor and political and civic leader, arrangements were completed for the WPA program to construct an auditorium and armory. Construction of the building in 1941 was likely the last WPA project in the area authorized to provide work to the unemployed. The site selected was a low-level, sandy lakefront area at Pennsylvania Avenue in Broughton Drive. This was the location of the former lumberyard of the Frybird Lumber Company, owned by the Frybird Novelty Furniture Company, with an adjacent factory south of Penn Avenue and Fort Street. The proposed design was of reinforced concrete, except for a steel, bow-stringed, truss roof. Even the exterior walls were to be of concrete, using inexpensive sand and gravel found locally. WPA crews labored to build the high walls. Extensive scaffolding was erected to enable the men to build heavy forms for the layers of concrete. There were piles of sand and gravel and a large concrete mixer with a huge, copper-shaped skip hoist which raised and lowered to put materials into the revolving drum. Everything was done by hand as ready-mix concrete trucks did not exist in 1941. Manpower and wheelbarrows moved the mix ever upward. The spacious 52,000 square foot arena, built in streamlined, modern style, was dedicated in 1942. It had a higher seating capacity than the Eagles Ballroom, Pap's Theater, Turner Hall and Riverside Theater in Milwaukee. I would have been about four or five years old. My mother and dad, my dad had a special interest in this, having a basketball court. They wanted to get out of that little dance hall downtown. And this was really, you know, a breakthrough for attendance. We drive down every once in a while and I'm in the backseat looking out, watching these guys pushing wheelbarrows. I attended Lincoln School and graduated from Lincoln School. But at the time, one of our field trips was to go down to the Armory as it was being built in 1940 and 1941. So those are some of my earliest remembrances of the Armory. Right from the very beginning, the Armory was a part of the community of Sheboygan. It was built that way. It was intended to be a part of the community. I know they had talked about it as an Armory, but what really ended up being was a municipal auditorium along with the Armory. I mean, the Armory served, of course, the National Guard and troops trained there. But the bigger part of it were the programs and activities and the get-togethers that took place. But even preceding that was the construction of the building itself. We're talking just post Great Depression. This was the very, very beginning of World War II. This was a WPA, Works Progress Administration job, and it was meant to get men back to work. So the building was designed in order to get as many men back to work as possible. Work needed to be done by hand. And if you look at the old photos, there's an awful lot of wheelbarrows and shovels going on that we certainly wouldn't see today. But what that did was put dozens, hundreds of men to work for sometimes eight weeks, 16 weeks. Well, consider when you had nothing. That was an amazing amount of work and money and it gave them training was a good time. So that in itself was a community project. The cornerstone was laid in 41 and they had their grand opening for the building in May of 1942. And almost immediately it was being used for all sorts of things. June of 42, they held the Central High North High School Combined Graduation here at the Armory that was a little over 500 graduates. Used to take place on Thursdays and at various locations from the the ball where they're currently held to the schools and the Armory was always involved with that because the community would sponsor an all night graduation party the night of graduation. When I graduated from high school, this was the place that the event was held. High school graduation was held here. What happened is you would to one day you would sign annuals up at the Y and then the day would end down at the Armory with both high schools north and south coming together for a big night here. We had a band called the Outsiders who were from Cleveland. They had a mega hit called Time Won't Let Me when they played. And it was so amazing for us to have that kind of act performed here at the Armory. It had all of these great parts of it when it was being built. It was putting people to work who were struggling financially. It was supporting, it was helping to support the war effort in World War II. And then it also served as a community gathering place. They had the auditorium upstairs. Political candidates across the board through the decades had stopped and did their campaigning at the Armory. Fred Waring was the most popular orchestra in the United States. He had a show on radio and in early years of television. And Usberg had a guy named Leonard Croningdonk who was a feature singer and we managed to get Fred Waring's orchestra and chorus to come and perform in the Armory. The place was packed. My mother performed on the stage here from about 1945 to 1950. And my mother was in a show with Mel Hummich from Sheboygan and a cast of about 30 people. It became really meaningful, I think, for my mother when I started playing here as a musician. And my first time here was with a band I had called The Elite Society and we were in the Battle of the Bands in 1965. We came in and did our thing. We had our paisley pants on and our CPO jackets and we performed such great hits as Snoopy and the Red Baron and things like that. Hits of the time. As we watched the other bands, there was one band that just totally knocked us out, a group from Plymouth and we thought, wow, those guys are amazing. Well it turns out they got penalized because they played too long. So the second place band won, which was us. As many of you might know, I grew up in Sheboygan County and the Armory was a special place for me and my wife Kathy and other community members in the area. Kathy and I have lots of memories there. I know that we went to various concerts and went to dances there, usually in Friday nights and had a great time. My number one memory of the Armory would have been in 1993. I went to see Vic Ferrari and everybody knows Vic Ferrari, you can't compare them to all these other great events there, but my brother, Paul, he was leaving to the Marines in a week after that concert. And somehow I snuck up a note on stage and I said, can you dedicate a song to my brother, Paul? He was leaving and he's always been by my side, you know, I was scared. And Vic, he came up there and he goes, we're going to dedicate the song to a young enlisted Marine. He's leaving in a week named Paul and he's saying American Pie and when he dedicated that song, that entire place just started clapping. And here I am 21, my brother's 18 and while I'm playing that song, I could feel he grabbed my hand, two adult brothers holding hands. And I'll never forget that. More recently, like the Mung New Year, Festival of Trees, you know, it was a community event that allowed the community to come to one place. I remember fondly that being a basketball player at the time, it was fun to be part of the Central High School team, all my friends were. I remember exploring the building where the kitchen was down in the basement where the bar was and you could have little snacks and beverages down there. It was just some of those things you just remember and you'll never forget because it was a significant part of my growing up in Sheboygan to have so many opportunities to participate in programs that were at the Armory. Before polar bearing, they would all meet in the Armory and get ready and get in their weird swimsuits and costumes and whatever and kind of party at the Armory and then march down however many blocks that is, which makes the whole idea even crazier that they're walking that far in the middle of winter. But that was part of that event, like even these events that happened outside had some sort of tie to the Armory always. They used to have fights, boxing and wrestling matches. They would set a wrestling match, pardon me, a wrestling ring right about at mid-court and then they would set up chairs all around. Nothing holds more history than the Armory in Sheboygan. All the events, any presidents, any entertainment, music, festivals, diversity, multicultural, all those things took place there. So it really is, you know, the textbook of history for the city. That was what the Armory supported in this community was basketball, amongst other things. But basketball was always a part of that building. We were one of the original NBA franchise cities. The Armory was one of the original courts in the first year of the NBA. You know, Sheboygan story only lasted one year in the NBA, but we were there. At the east end of the Armory was the only scoreboard. And so if you were coming into the Armory from the east, it was hard for you to see the scoreboard. So I was invited to sit on stage and keep score on a scoreboard that was probably six feet high and it had two things listed, home team and visitor. The actual numbers that you put up on the board were maybe 12 inches high, two little holes at each end, and I had to pay attention that you sure I was looking at the scoreboard so that when I was keeping score was accurate and same sync with the electronic scoreboard. They got caught in the snowstorm and they got to Madison Square Garden ten minutes before the game started. They pulled up right in front of the place, jumped out with their gym bags, little Otto Ruppel would come out there and carry the bandages and the other supplies, uniform bags. And the owner looked at that, he says, Madison Square Garden, New York, Sheboygan, nobody knew where it was, what it was. He says, and these are the guys that are going to be playing here. He says, if they're in the league next year, I'm not. Red Alarbach, the famed coach and general manager of the Boston Celtics for all those championship years for them, in his memories, he referred to Sheboygan as the worst place to play in the NBA. He played one game there, one season. That's how much. It stuck in his head. And it wasn't just the sake of how the court was set up. That was pretty common in the 40s and 50s to have a court like the Armory, but it was a sense that they had no separation between the hometown fans and the guys on the bench. So he's explaining how the locals are there, jabbing knees into their backs and ridiculing them and doing all of this to the point where he's like, that was by far the worst place we ever played. When people think of the Armory, certainly North-South High School basketball are the things they're going to look at simply because that was the one event that was held every year there from the history of the Armory all the way through 2006. The first high school basketball game that happened here happened in January of 1943. So this was all within months of the building being open. All of these major events started and they lasted for decades. I came in and experienced my first game in Sheboygan in 1977. And my first experience there after being a junior high coach in Milwaukee was kids were all talking about North-South basketball. Here we go. It was going to be awesome. And my experience was the first time out we had the players would come to the sideline and there would be such a din in the Barnard-Broton that they called it that the players couldn't hear me and I was about two feet from their faces during that time. That was my first experience. Now I've had a history of winning quite a few games and I'm very proud of that but this experienced coach lost six of his first 10 games at the Armory. South had some really great coaches. Dan Koopman and I go back to when I was coaching in Chilton and he was a JV coach at Keele. But he had some really nice teams and his last game against North was his first win against North. So that was pretty special for Dan and the Southside teams. I would say that's probably where I made my most impactful memories North-South basketball games that is just because of the age that I was. You have all of your friends and everything in the room and having the like cross-town rivalry and meeting at this sort of center of town place. Dan Stengel really made a dynamic jump into his experience as a athletic director in 2003. He kept it a huge secret from both North and South. He brought in the renowned ring announcer for boxing for the top boxing matches Michael Buffer. My senior year 2003 the first North-South game North actually brought in Michael Buffer to do the starting lineups that day and actually introduced everybody but kind of really went over the top for the starting lineups and I remember trying to make sure that I didn't jump out of my skin as the tip was going on that day because it was just kind of a surreal experience. Aubrey Koistor said this in one of the in the program that I did about the Armory said you know if you ever want to watch the worst basketball watch the first two minutes of a North-South game in the Armory because everybody's so fired up you know they haven't settled down yet and they need to play a little bit to get into the flow of the game. I've got a lot of great memories playing basketball at the Armory when I was younger that was one of the few games that WSES actually televised live so it was kind of a big deal when North and South played each other and getting able to watch those games live on TV from the Armory and kind of as you worked your way up through playing and looking forward to getting to just be in that environment just something really special that the area had to offer. The band was always on the stage behind us and as either North or either South in the story I'm going to tell I won't say which school but I got home that night my wife says who in the world was that playing that horn behind you and I heard it all the time they play it's this kid was just way off I mean it was annoying to say the least but that part of it too and even to this day when we go to games North South games regular high school games when they have that pep band in the building it just makes a world of difference and the pep bands for the most part I'm talking about one kid in one instance having you know off key but for the most part the bands are awesome and they add so much to the atmosphere it's it's really cool. Usberg wanted to be a part of North South in 1996 Kevin Brugink was the superintendent he's still the basketball coach there and he wanted to bring in the Dutchman to play a game at this historic armory I agreed to the game but when I saw what happened I was taken back because for Usberg this was a Usberg nation I mean I don't think there were many people at home and in Usberg they were camped outside the armory and when they opened the gates for the Usberg North game most of the people in the stands were red and white they wanted experience the the atmosphere here. My first memory of the armory was in 1997 my father-in-law was the basketball coach actually at South I lived in Illinois and I came up to watch a North South game I've been to a lot of events growing up but I'd never seen such energy and a community bonding experience as I did when I went to that North South game and just the decimal reading that the noise the impact the positive energy and you could tell had been going on a neat tradition for many years so that always stuck in my mind and I went to one other game and then when I found out that it was used for all kinds of events it was just amazing to me because I had never seen a city center like that. The 1940s the war years went to the 1950s that were very pleasant people just wanted to get back to living and then there were just a ton of events life life was good the 1960s changed all of that you know teenagers were different activities were different you really have to figure the social issues into that that really had a great deal to do with why the armories changed and why it wasn't necessary anymore and a good part of that were our expectations and changed a great deal. I felt in terms of the armory and its longevity it was a great facility at the beginning and the times and the way basketball particularly is played it just wasn't safe for the players anymore and because it hadn't been kept up with I feel that to take it down now is the right decision I thought it should have been taken down probably 10 years ago I mean to take the building down now is going to cost a lot more than it would have to do it 10 years ago it's a great building it holds a lot of memories for me and a lot of people in the community and that's what makes it hard to let go but let's face it it comes a time when you know it's time and this certainly is a time to let go. There was a point where I firmly believe that people were saying it should be torn down but really deep down inside they didn't believe that they just didn't know what else to do with it. I was always fascinated by it and I wanted to get involved to save it and that started during Mayor Ryan's campaign and I continued on and basically five five years of an ongoing effort thousands of hours that put in trying to work with the city work with individuals get a group formed we formed the Armory Foundation to try to save this and we wanted to provide for the community we wanted a place where somebody could have an event that was a musical event with three four thousand people at a concert. Where can you do that indoors in Sheboygan now? We lost in the end and basically what I believe we lost was an ideological battle. We tried we tried and it was it was a very intense full couple years and ups and downs roller coaster it was stressful and my wife and I sometimes and Colin had a lot of stress Colin was really hurting. We put up a fight as long as we could and we were up against a different view of values from the city and people working in in it and we just couldn't overcome that so we left and then Dane Schaefer and his group took over. I was absolutely not heard by city leadership by city employees by elected officials and I guess I'm speaking broadly of course there are a handful that that I feel did hear me and did want to come to solutions but generally speaking the vast majority of them wanted nothing to do with that. The community on the other hand was extremely supportive. I sent a letter to Mayor Vandersen and and I said this is an idea I have can I be given some time or some you know to try to find a solution to this and he never responded so when he didn't respond I decided that I would just release the letter publicly. The people were like you know yeah nobody's using it so we need to do something with it but we can't really afford to keep it and let it just rot and so it kind of hit that good middle ground of trying to make as many people happy as possible and so it got a lot of attention. It was a contentious time you know across the board and people's emotions got riled up. To me it's kind of one of these things where as the building's coming down and everyone's posting things on social media look at the demolition and oh remember this time and remember that and to me personally I just keep asking myself where were you 10 months ago when the group was asking for people to stand up and say we need to save this building where were you? Donna Wendell and I thought about possibly purchasing the armory we don't know if it was for sale or not this is just when spaceport was occupying it and in tennis there's a defined field or court football there's a defined court in soccer there is not a defined court there are four and in order for it to work at the armory we would have had to take away the stage little did we know that the stage was filled in with concrete so all of our thoughts about maybe having indoor soccer at the Y was supposed to wrap the the seating was still there on both sides it would have been perfect except the cost was going to be prohibitive to get away that take away that concrete underneath. Even the long timers in Sheboygan aren't connected as deeply to some of those those long held loves that groups before were and maybe that's a gross generalization but we're different people than we used to be. We got new shiny you know gym facilities on both sides of town and we just abandoned it as as leadership and as a community we just let it rot and then only 10 years later you know people started stepping up to try to save the thing we should have never let it get to that point and we can't we can't afford to let anything else get to that point. Sheboygan I think has always had this these moments of time where they just say out with the old in with the new. Sometimes I think you just have to say we did everything we could and we're finished. The folks that fought for it did an admirable job but I also on the flip side of that don't blame the city for deciding that this is something that they couldn't use either. If we just use the comparison between City Hall and the renovation of City Hall and the renovation of the Armory there's a huge difference in usage. City Hall that's a landmarkable building too and they spent a lot of money I think that was about an 11 million dollar project but it also is the center of government. It's an office building if the city for some reason decides not to use it or moves out of it at any point in time it's an office building that can be sold to anybody. It's a building that can be turned into apartments. The reuse issue there is entirely different than the reuse issue for the for the Armory. I think from a local historical perspective the Armory was a building that should have been saved to keep Sheboygan Sheboygan. It was it played too large of a role in this community through you know the past 80 years for it to just end in a pile of rubble. It shouldn't have been that way. The building was designed and built to last. It was built as an Armory you know in the 40s it was built designed and built to withstand potential military attacks you know for it to come down by a wrecking wall you know it's in my opinion not right. You can keep the building but it's really the memories that are the thing that we want and the more we talk about them and the more we write about them and the more we remember them the longer this goes on. We've got probably another 20 years where people who absolutely love the Armory will have these memories and will be around to to remember those things. Once we get past that then people will begin to say what was the Armory. I don't know that was never there. I don't remember that. So we've got a small window where this kind of thing is going to be fantastic. I did underestimate the gloss of tearing it down. I don't know what the total figures came down and how easy it would be. I thought it would be a wrecking ball but they bit that thing apart one bite at a time and came down very quickly and very easily. So I was pretty impressed with the demolition of it and I guess in my mind sometimes it's easier to drive by now and not see it. The life goes on. It's sad to see it go but it's time. We had a lot of fun at the Armory and it's great to see projects like this that not only allow folks to remember our good times there but that will ensure future Wisconsinites can learn about the Armory's significance and impact on the community.