By Ed Shannon, staff writer

What still stands out on the skyline for nearly every community in the Midwest are the water towers, grain elevators and smokestacks. These true landmarks are visible for several miles away in all directions and serve as local reference points.

In 1922 Albert Lea acquired what was at that time the tallest landmark, other than buildings, in the state. This was the new 300-foot high smokestack for the Southern Minnesota Gas and Electric Co. coal-fired power plant. This electrical generation plant was located between South Broadway and Newton Avenues, just south of the Western Grocer Company building, and near the tracks of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad.

The foundation for this smokestack extended 10 feet into the ground and took 500 yards of concrete.

Alphons, Custodius Chimney Co. of Chicago was the contractor for this project. They started with a stack with an inside diameter of 25 feet at the base. This gradually tapered up to an inside diameter of 11 feet at the top. Ohio fire clay brick, buff in color, was used. Over 12,000 tons of brick went into the creation of this landmark.

On the south side of this smokestack the words &8220;light-power&8221; were highlighted in darker colored bricks.

In the late summer of 1922 this project was completed. However, before any coal smoke went up the interior of this stack and out into the atmosphere, an unusual event took place as part of this dedication.

A Tribune article described this part of the event with, &8220;A half inch steel cable was run on the outside of the stack from a drum on an eighteen horse power engine to a pulley on the top of the stack. This cable came down inside and at the bottom of it (the stack) was a bucket filled with hardened cement.&8221;

Two people at a time stood on this bucket. A belt hooked each person to the cable. Then in six seconds the two passengers went up the stack&8217;s dark interior to the top. After a few minutes of looking down at the city and out over the landscape of farms, trees and lakes, the bucket went back down to the base of the stack in four seconds, according to the Tribune.

Among those making this ride which rivaled anything ever created for an amusement park were Joe Reynolds, editor of the Mankato Free Press, John H. Skinner, editor of the Austin Herald, and Lesley

Whitcomb of the Tribune.

Skinner later wrote, &8220;From a distance of five miles looms up as a shaft of light. To Albert Lea it to be a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of light by night, leading to greater industrial growth.

&8220;The smoke from this stack will mingle with the smoke from the stacks of Austin, marking

where the Twin Cities of southern Minnesota in pleasant and vigorous rivalry wave a challenge to the rest of the state.&8221;

About 1925 the Interstate Power Co. of Dubuque, Iowa, acquired the Southern Minnesota Gas and Electric Co. And for nearly five decades the Albert Lea plant provided electricity for area communities, plus being a part of a regional power grid. Also, up to 1954, the plant provided hot water heat for 350 customers in the city&8217;s central business district, the residential area along the south shore of Fountain Lake, and even up into the Park Avenue neighborhood.

By the 1970s the local power plant was placed on a standby basis to be used when more electricity was needed in the Interstate system.

Another factor which contributed to the demise of the local plant was the completion of

Interstate&8217;s huge coal fired electrical generation facility at Lansing, Iowa.

In 1979 the decision was made to demolish the Albert Lea power plant and to retain the nearby substation on South Broadway Avenue.

Some local folks may have had the thought this smokestack would be turned over to experts who would implode the tall tower of bricks in one mighty blast. After all, this method of demolition was then being used on buildings all over the nation. Those same folks likely visualized being part of an audience watching the powerful explosion dropping this smokestack straight down into a pile of ruble in a cloud of dust and debris.

However, one major concern canceled out the implosion concept. There was absolutely no room for error. Just a slight miscalculation could cause major damages to several nearby buildings, or block South Newton Avenue, or create havoc with the electric substation, or block and damage the all too close Milwaukee and Rock Island railroad tracks. Thus, the decision was made to literally take down the smokestack a brick at a time.

A crew from the Alphons, Custodius firm of Chicago came to Albert Lea to take down the tall chimney. This same company had erected the landmark 57 years earlier.

A scaffold was erected on the top of the smokestack and moved down as the rows of bricks were removed and dropped down the inside of the tall chimney. At the bottom those bricks and other debris were removed by the truckloads and taken to a landfill.

After several months of contending with late fall and early weather conditions, the crew from Chicago completed the demolition of what had been Albert Lea&8217;s

tallest landmark.