To the editor:

I have wondered who owned the old Blish Mill silos and if someone was paying property tax on the property without it producing any income.

I remember as a kid when those silos were built.

At the time the whole block of St. Louis Avenue to Carter Street and from Bruce Street to Tipton Street was an open field.

A small wood structure was built on the west part of that open field and it housed what might have been the first “drive in” in Seymour.

This operation may have been owned by Thompson Dairy because it sold ice cream products. A man by the name of Dewitt Ogan ran this little ice cream shop.

He was a member of the Seymour public school administration staff. I think he was a principal or assistant principal. For him it provided some summertime income.

While the silos were being built, my folks would drive to the vacant lot and park our car, get a milk shake from the ice cream drive in and watch the construction of the silos. I don’t know what hours they worked on the silos, but I do remember they had big flood lights to illuminate them at night as they were being constructed. I thought their construction took longer than a week as mentioned in the Tribune article. That was our entertainment in Seymour at the time.

As for finding a use for the silos, first I question the stability of the structures.

After all, they are about 80 years old and have probably not had any maintenance of them in many years, if any. I would think it would take a considerable amount of money to convert them to any commercial use. Seymour has little history of anyone providing money for historical projects. The city museum is a good example of that lack. How many years has the idea of Seymour having a museum been proposed with no viable museum yet opened?

I personally believe the only possible use for the silos is to paint murals on both sides. Yet, even murals require ongoing maintenance to keep them fresh. Only the cost of tearing the silos down has kept them up this long. The land they sit on has little value. The whole structure area is pretty much “land locked” by the railroad and its siding. It is easy to dream when you are spending other people’s money.

Phil Cordes

Seymour