The Globe Building in Electra, Texas is now lost.
I took this photo of a two story building along Cleveland Street in Electra (Wichita county, Texas) a few years back. I always thought "The Globe" stood for the newspaper in Electra, and I was kind of right. In 1914, this building opened as men's clothing store called "The Globe." By 1955, the building, located at 118 W. Cleveland, was home to the Electra Star Newspaper's offices and printing facilities. At one point, the building lost all tenants and just stood there, abandoned.
In 2010 or thereabouts, the back wall of the Brewer Building, which stood east adjacent to The Globe Building, collapsed. When it did, it destabilized the Globe Building. The owners of the Globe Building gave it to the city of Electra, and the city razed the unstable Brewer Building the following year. Then, in the hopes of saving The Globe, one of the town's oldest remaining buildings, the citizens of Electra paid for a structural engineer to assess it. Deeming it "unsafe for human occupancy," the engineering report alone came to $31,000, with an estimated lead and asbestos abatement price tag over $38,000.
What could a small town do? Should they save the building, or should they let it go? Ultimately, the city decided that the Globe had to be demolished.
Its demise is understandable, of course. That's the question about preservation: should structures be saved at all costs, even if the future benefits are not apparent and the costs for preservation prohibitive?
