Community rallies to save Old Town mural

Jim Jacobson remembers when the old firehouse building on Arthur Avenue was condemned. He can recall seeing bricks missing out of the wall as he drove past it every day.

When the building’s owner not only fixed up the wall, but had a local artist paint a mural on it, too, Jacobson saw it as something finally being done in his part of town.

“It seems like all the new businesses are going toward Chubbuck and downtown has kind of been forgotten,” Jacobson said.

Now with the possibility of it going away, you could say he’s upset.

“This (mural) just needs to stay,” Jacobson said. “We need to keep this and do more (artwork) like this to make downtown a place where people are proud of.”

He’s not alone. An online petition circling around social media sites quickly gathered hundreds and hundreds of signatures. Many were asking for the mural to be left as is and questioning the city’s Historic Preservation Commission to reject the permit for the mural.

According to the HPC’s liaison, Terri Neu, the owner didn’t follow proper protocol when filing for the permit.

The old firehouse building sits in Pocatello’s downtown historic district. Buildings there have to go through a “design review” when making any kinds of external changes. This is to make sure all buildings reflect Pocatello during 1890 through 1930, which is when most of downtown was built.

Since the owner didn’t get an approved certificate of appropriateness from the HPC before doing work on the building, it was simple to reject the permit.

“It may be a beautiful mural and I’ve heard from many people that it is a beautiful mural,” Neu said. “However, (the owner) did not have permission.”

Neu said the rules protect the area as a whole, and that the mural isn’t historically accurate since there were no horses running wild during the time period it should reflect.