News
Roof collapses in downtown Willow City
Scott Wagar
03/31/2015
A historical building in downtown Willow City was lost last week when the roof of the structure fell in on itself after serving the community for close to a century.
The building was the city’s former hardware store which closed in 2005; however, over the years the building has housed a variety of business and was a place where the community and surrounding areas gathered for social activities.
The building, which was original known as the Lizotte building, was established by August and Alfred Lizotte and served the community as a department store. The structure was constructed sometime after the fire of 1905.
The Lizotte brothers actually started their department store at the turn of the ninetieth century in the same location, but the building was lost in a tragic event.
“The store was destroyed by fire with much of Willow City’s Main Street in 1905,” said Marilynn Diepolder, a local author and historian of Willow City. “The Lizotte brothers had a large department store there and had other business interests as well in the town.”
The two brothers didn’t allow the fire of 1905 to discourage them and they rebuilt their department store and conducted business out of the building for a number of years.
Over the years, the structure has been utilized by Willow’s resident as a cafe, laundromat, bowling alley and as the hardware store.
The structure also brought people from in and around Bottineau Community together when the Lizotte building was used as a dance hall.
“The building was popular for the young crowd as a Dime a Dance Hall at one time. Probably during the 30s, but not sure,” Diepolder said. “In this building, dances went on until midnight on Saturday nights for many years.
“A three-piece orchestra from Minot often supplied the music,” Diepolder added. “Waltz, fox trots and the two-step were a few of the favorite dances. Wild times in Willow I’m sure.”
It is uncertain when the roof collapsed last week because it happened during the night. The failure of it rafters was powerful enough to send bricks into the community’s downtown park and almost against the east wall of First National Bank’s building, which stands one lot away from the Lizotte building.
The Bottineau Courant made a call, and left a message, to the owner of the building to see what the future plans are for the structure, but the newspaper’s call wasn’t returned back by press time.