Council hears Lyle’s plea “to do something”

With no disrespect to anyone who had an idea to save Oconee’s old courthouse, the county fathers are moving forward to demo the 1956 building that sits crumbling at the Walhalla corner of W. Main and S. Church streets.  One proposal pursued over a period of years was to turn the building into a small hotel, but it never came to fruition.  Last night the county council agreed to a Julian Davis motion to call for bids on what it would take to demolish.  Preceding the vote was a plea by Walhallan Luther Lyle, who presented letters from the St. John’s Lutheran Church and the nearby Museum of the Cherokee to act.  Lyle, a St. John’s member, says the congregation from across S. Church has watched week after week the further deterioration of a courthouse and government office building that when constructed was considered a jewel of the 1950s.  But it was abandoned when the county built an adjacent new courthouse.  Davis noted that there are many times when courthouse parking is a premium and by demolishing the old building the space could be converted to a parking lot.