Sewer-pipe garage to be razed

• PHOTO: Pipe garage

Peter Jacobs has been hauling decades of accumulation out of his garage, which is made of Red Wing Sewer Pipe Co. flue tile, in preparation for dismantling the unique two-story building.

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It's coming down.

After 20 years of looking into his back yard at a dilapidated old garage with walls of bright red-orange Red Wing Sewer Pipe Factory tile, Peter Jacobs has decided the time has come to replace it with a garage he can actually use for vehicles.

The roof is sagging, the wood floor isn't strong enough to bear much weight, and the wood posts that keep the floor from falling into the basement are rotting.

But the colorful tile looks like it did the day it was manufactured — probably at the sewer pipe factory in Clay City Industrial Park, just over the hill from Jacobs' back yard on West Sixth Street.

It seems that sewer pipe salesmen weren't just boasting when they claimed in old newspaper advertisements that their product was impervious to weather, rust, frost, germs — and perhaps even time.

One of perhaps two such buildings in Red Wing — he has heard there's another tile garage on the East End — Jacobs' garage is a two-story structure, about 20 by 20 feet square.

Pick up a copy of Saturday's print edition to read the full story.

Tags: local news, red wing, sewer pipe, peter jacobs, news