The Belfry on the corner of Farwell and Madison. Seriously, what is the deal with that?

    Thanks for asking. It is quite the mystery isn’t it? I think it’s the real deal (more on that later). As I’m sure you can tell, it was also a church (more on that, too).

In the early 1880s and probably before, that end of that block (Farwell Street at Madison) was crowded with little weeny houses, eight of them – one no bigger than a dorm room, but still a separate dwelling. By the 1890s, they’d all been taken down and a substantial home took up that half-block: horse barn, two porches on the house; you know, nice.

In 1928, Concordia Evangelical Lutheran Church, just organized in Eau Claire, started building the structure you see there now. Took a year to build, dedicated in November of ’29, just weeks after the stock market crash. Concordia is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (formerly the Norwegian Synod). Verrry conservative … but relatively home-grown! Based in Mankato, which you’ll best remember as the “big city” from Little House on the Prairie.

The congregation stayed 45 years downtown. Left not because it was declining, quite the opposite. Moved in 1973 to a five-acre campus between London Road and Highway 93, a few blocks north of the whole Golf Road hubbub.

    Cecil Cheever bought the building; still owner/operator some 36 years later. In his late 70s now, I have heard. Cheever first opened Indianhead Electronics, and shortly the Belfry opened upstairs.

I’ve never been in the Belfry. Tried several times, but never succeeded. My latest experience, doing due diligence to answer your question, is typical. I drove the steep alley to a parking area behind. Cracks in the tarmac allowed weeds to poke through, chest-high in the late summer. Two vehicles in the lot: a Ford Club Wagon maxi-van, its tags last renewed in 1995, and an oh-how-the-mighty-have-fallen Lincoln Town Car, last renewed four years ago. Both had flat tires.

I walked down the drive to the front door, found it open. Climbed the wide stairs toward what had been the sanctuary, and found the double gothic doors not only closed, but with a large crockery pot set to block both doors at once. Tiny windows in each door are painted, but enough paint was chipped or scrubbed to allow a view inside. From what little I could tell, it looked like the kind of merchandise you might find at Scandinavian Imports.

Went back downstairs and down again another flight toward Indianhead Electronics. The stairs, while solid, have not been refurbished since the Lutherans left. An angry lap dog set-to on a piercing tirade. A woman yelled (perhaps to be heard over the dog, but perhaps something more menacing), “Can I help you!?” I answered “All right if I look around?” Long, long pause, although I could plainly see her. I added, “Um, is that all right?” Finally, “I suppose!”

To hazard a guess, Indianhead has never removed any stock from its shelves. (That said, it has some quite up-to-date items, Cat-5e ethernet cable for example.) One long shelf has more total projector bulbs, and a wider variety of them, than I have ever seen before. Maybe each place does a fine wholesale business, but certainly, a quaint “Stillwater antiquing date” it is not.

Got a local question? Send it (17 S. Barstow St.) or email it (mail@volumeone.org) and Frank will answer it!  Frank has lived in Eau Claire for most of the past 41 years. He is an editor and researcher at the Chippewa Valley Museum, which is open all year just beyond the Paul Bunyan Camp Museum in beautiful Carson Park. You should go there.