The old city hall will soon have a new timekeeper.

“I’m looking forward to running and maintaining the clock for the town,” said new buyer Joshua Sudbrink of Augusta on September 3 of the timepiece located at 116 East Third Avenue in Stanley.

Arriving at the old city building before 9:00 a.m. to help remove city property were Public Works Director John Hoel, city workers Richard Fredrickson and Jake Leukes, and Second Ward Alderman Kevin Hendrickson. Sudbrink, a bus driver for the city of Eau Claire, was on site with realtor Dean Tinjum and the city moving crew to take in his new purchase. With a vault door worthy of a bank on the first floor in back and an effective second vault in the basement with tax assessments books kept safe behind a “fire door,” the moving day was bittersweet, but also hopeful. We asked Sudbrink what got him interested in the old building and what he planned to do with it.

“I’m planning on turning it into multi-family housing and I’m planning on living upstairs,” Sudbrink said of his plans for the building. Pressed further, he said that meant one unit downstairs and one upstairs. Asked what got him interested in the old city hall, the soon-to-be new clock tower timekeeper said that, “this is a unique historical building,” and that he had seen it listed on a realtor’s website.

Once a one-stop shop for all things city related, the first

floor of the old city hall on Third Avenue housed the city jail, fire, police station, and clerk’s office, while the second floor played host to the local municipal court in front and a council chamber in the back. Regarding the fire department, the part of the basement where the old horse drawn cart would have been is unexcavated, while support walls and pillars are evident elsewhere with a brick chimney and fieldstone foundation for the base. When originally built back in 1900 the old city building was also briefly used as educational housing for Stanley’s then overflowing youth population. But the vault?

“No idea what I’m going to do with that,” Sudbrink said of the first floor records depository. The old vault records inside were cleaned out by the city workers as they removed city property September 3, making the old city hall ready for its new owner and timekeeper— with a unit to come on the first floor at a later date.

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Photo by Joseph Back.

New City timekeeper Joshua Sudbrink.