Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 6, 1993 TAG: 9310060010
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Those passing through the Roanoke City Market area may have noticed workers for Breakell Inc., a Roanoke construction firm, installing the fountain this past week in front of the Norfolk Southern Corp. office building at Williamson Road and Church Avenue.
As Roanoke fountains go, this is one of the more unusual.
It was erected in 1907 at the entrance to a park on Shenandoah Avenue across from the old Norfolk and Western Railway passenger terminal. The park eventually became a parking lot for the Hotel Roanoke.
Friends of former NW President Frederick J. Kimball, who died in 1903, bought the fountain for $3,000 and erected it in his memory.
One side contains a large trough for watering horses, each end has a small trough for dogs and other small animals, and the back side features a smaller bowl and a spout from which Roanoke's two-legged creatures could enjoy a fresh drink.
But the water in the most recent incarnation of the fountain will not be for drinking. It's recycled.
Old newspaper accounts tell that the fountain was carved from a solid block of red granite - although it is assembled in 14 pieces. The fountain's Middle Eastern-style dome is polished to a shine, while the remainder of the structure is not.
One side bears the legend, "To him whom we owe so much - Frederick J. Kimball." On the other three sides of the fountain's superstructure are carved lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner:
"He prayeth well, who loveth well, both man and bird and beast: he prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small. . . ."
Kimball was born in Philadelphia in 1844 and was president of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad from 1881 to 1885. He was the first vice president and chief operating officer of the NW in 1883 and later that year became NW's second president.
Kimball was something of a dandy and noted as a sharp dresser, according to E.F. Pat Striplin's "The Norfolk & Western, a History."
"He seemed equally at home with English nobles and gentry or with pick and shovel men on the new line into West Virginia," Striplin wrote.
Kimball's popularity with English investors accounted for much of his success in expanding NW, Striplin wrote. He related that in 1891, the Financial Times of London called Kimball the "sort of president that English investors like. . . . He identifies himself with one road and gives his whole life to it."
David Goode, the Vinton-born NS chairman, began the drive to bring Kimball's memorial home to the railroad.
The Kimball fountain stood in front of the NW passenger station until the 1950s, when it was declared a traffic hazard, dismantled and put into storage.
In 1974, City Council gave the fountain to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and it became an ornament in a pet cemetery at the society's shelter on Eastern Avenue. It was a less than auspicious resting place for a memorial to the man who awarded the junction of the Shenandoah Valley and NW railroads to Big Lick - now Roanoke - rather than to Montvale, Bonsack or Salem.
In the past year, the railroad persuaded the SPCA to relinquish the fountain, and plans were put into action to give it a prominent spot in front of the downtown office building.
One railroad manager entrusted with getting the job done was Robert Lovelace, a Roanoke native, who for 20 years has worked his way up the NS ranks and back to Roanoke in the position of assistant manager for passenger and special equipment.
He has managed freight car repair shops, supervised safety programs and written regulations for passenger cars. But until he was asked in early September to get the Kimball memorial moved, his experience with fountains was zilch.
Lovelace shared responsibility for relocating the monument with Gary Fosnot, NS manager of engineering and architecture in Atlanta, and got on-site help from Roy Thomas, superintendent of the office building.
He turned to a couple of Roanoke companies to plan and carry out the actual dismantling and reconstruction. Mattern and Craig provided engineering services; AMCON Inc. moved the monument with its cranes; and Breakell poured the foundation and put the fountain up.
The granite was filthy even before the fountain was shipped to the SPCA. Unable to find a company in Roanoke that could clean it, Lovelace found the AMR Group, a Camp Springs, Md., company that includes the White House among some of the national monuments it has tidied up.
A little cleaning fluid, some high-pressure water and bleach and the Kimball Memorial was looking as good as new - except for a missing chunk here and there. The marred places are at the fountain's bottom and will be covered with a base of dark marble.
Roger St. Clair, a Breakell superintendent who recently worked on the Virginia Heights Elementary School renovation, said this was the first fountain he had done.
The only problem his crew ran into was in digging the foundation, St. Clair said. The workers had to go seven feet deeper than planned after the crew ran into debris, including the foundation of an old building, beneath the office building's lawn.
Lovelace said he has had fun coordinating the job, probably because it was so "different and unusual."
The fountain was being tested this week and, except for a leak at the base near one drain, was in good shape. Landscapers will restore the grass and shrubbery around the construction site, and work should be completed by the time the Roanoke Railway Festival gets under way this weekend.
NS spokesman Bob Auman said a small dedication ceremony is planned in the near future. A place has been left in the sidewalk in front of the fountain for a dedication stone.
Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro