An antebellum brick structure that used to house a public library and a museum constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s are on the 2010 list of endangered buildings released by the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia.

Officials connected with both the former Greenbrier County Library in Lewisburg and the Hawks Nest State Park Museum in Ansted see the listing as an important first step toward rehabbing the historic structures.

According to the Preservation Alliance, lists of at-risk historic properties are compiled primarily to focus attention on the plight of not just the properties, but also the organizations involved in their preservation. The listing opens the door to obtaining grant funding through the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

“We were happy to be selected,” Lewisburg Mayor John Manchester said. “It allows us access to a special program. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has funded a full-time position to help us go after funding.”

When a new, state-of-the-art public library opened in Lewisburg in 2007, its former home, an 1834 Adams style building, was left empty. Complicating the effort to re-purpose the building are deed restrictions that require the city to use it in one of three ways: a library, a museum or an historic building open to the public, Manchester noted.

While the building is reasonably stable, interior floors have buckled due to water intrusion, and water pipes have burst from lack of heat. It also needs a new roof and rehabilitation of windows and bathrooms.

New River Community and Technical College is interested in creating a student fine arts gallery and arts library in the building, which prior to West Virginia statehood in 1863 was the library and study for the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

During the Civil War, the two-story brick structure served as a Union hospital and barracks. Soldiers’ inscriptions can still be seen on the interior walls.

“The college’s preliminary plans call for rotating historical displays,” the mayor explained, adding New River has submitted a grant application to pay rehabilitation costs so the facility can be used to teach Civil War history.

Under New River’s proposal, the city would continue to own the building, while the college uses it under a long-term lease arrangement.

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John Bracken, acting superintendent of Hawks Nest State Park, also emphasized the potential for obtaining grant funding to restore the native chestnut log building that once housed the park’s museum.

“It’s in dire need of repairs,” Bracken said of the structure. “And it’s going to take a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of work to be able to reopen the museum here.”

Work on the roof, gutters, siding, timbers, stonework, windows and heating and air conditioning systems are all needed. Another barrier to the building’s public use is its lack of handicap accessibility.

Bracken estimates the repairs alone will run into “several hundred thousand dollars,” but making the museum accessible could push the cost to $1 million.

Until 2005, the museum housed the Calhoun Collection and Native American artifacts. Many of those items are now temporarily displayed at Ansted Town Hall, Bracken said.

The museum building, which sits atop a massive fieldstone foundation, serves as an anchor for the lower park picnic area, gift shop, rest rooms and New River overlook, all of which were constructed by the CCC. Once repaired, the structure can be an interpretation center for the park, with demonstrations of crafts like weaving and educational programs for school groups.

— E-mail: talvey@register-herald.com