LAKE CITY, Iowa — Thursday marks the two-year anniversary that Lake City lost a staple of their community: The Dobson Pipe Organ Builders factory.
Today, that business is working toward opening a brand new factory that will go in place of the old building.
The original building once stood tall in the middle of Lake City, but it was gone within a matter of hours.
Three minutes is all it took for a local community member and volunteer firefighter, Scott Bruns, to be the first on the scene.
He said when he got there, there was no hope.
"With that short of a response time, the entire North Building was fully engulfed by the time we had gotten on scene," Bruns said. "We had our first pumper on scene, empty water within the first five minutes. From their way, kind of knew we were in defensive mode and wasn't a whole lot of saving that we were going to do”
The firefighters worked for twenty hours with the help of eight other fire departments from nearby counties.
“It was a long, hard battle," Bruns said. "But our community came out and definitely did a fantastic job of supporting us. I mean, we had stacks of bottled water, we had pizzas and sandwiches and our community. That park was just full of people watching and supporting the fire department and our ambulance."
Even as a volunteer firefighter, Bruns said this fire was different than others.
"For a small town, we've got a thriving downtown business district," he said. "So we take a lot of pride in that and just see one of the centerpieces burned, [it] was definitely gut wrenching for a lot of people in the community.”
Dobson's Pipe Organ Builders is now working on a new building to replace the old one, so this centerpiece can be restored.
“I mean, we were already immediately that very next day talking about how we're going to get the tools that we need to keep doing the projects that we can do," said Donny Hobbs, the shop foreman. "Obviously, we couldn't build the organs we were building, but we do a lot of maintenance and rebuilding.”
While a new building is in store, this world renowned business means so much more to this community.
“The last two years has been a lot of work and, and a lot of just effort put in behind all that stuff," Hobbs said. "So it feels tremendous that we've actually achieved this."
The groundbreaking ceremony of the new building will happen July 5. Community members say they can't wait for this place to return.