- 15 hours ago
Abandoned Engineering - Season 15 Episode 5 -
London's Burning
London's Burning
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FunTranscript
00:00A compound in Seattle, rocked by a high-profile military scandal.
00:06There was tremendous pressure on the American government to assure the world that they would get justice.
00:14A concrete shell in London, devastated by the city's largest explosion.
00:21Innocent lives were sacrificed in the name of war. It was a tragedy that should never have happened.
00:30A rural structure in Wisconsin linked to the founding of an American institution.
00:36It was a kind of hotbed for political movement that would profoundly affect the country.
00:44And an isolated stronghold in Greece that incurred a sultan's wrath.
00:50Tens of thousands were killed, enslaved, or forced to flee.
01:00In Seattle, Washington, on the edge of the Puget Sound, a scenic park bears traces of a miscarriage of justice during a national crisis.
01:14It's a 534-acre expanse of hiking trails and wilderness.
01:26But across the site are these smart properties that don't look like your typical park buildings.
01:32The houses are boarded up. The windows are boarded over.
01:38This is a neighborhood that has been shut down.
01:41Inside, the buildings are in a really bad state of disrepair.
01:48There's peeling paint, holes in the walls, and exposed rafters in the ceilings.
01:54Trying to piece together what this place was used for isn't easy.
01:59One of these buildings has got cages in it.
02:05Big cages.
02:06These cells would hold men accused of a breakdown of order and a brutal killing.
02:15But not all was as it seemed.
02:18This starts as a scuffle, and it turns into a riot, and then a murder.
02:24The court-martial brings in its verdict.
02:27Guilty.
02:28But what we were able to discover was it was an absolute travesty of justice.
02:39In 1985, I was a young news reporter, and I was assigned to one of the most dull, boring assignments you could have at that age.
02:48The local community was trying to decide what to do with a sewage treatment plant.
02:54But there was more here than just a sewage plant.
02:58When a park ranger pointed out a strange headstone in the military cemetery, it sent Jack Hammond on a decades-long hunt for the truth.
03:07It says, Guglielmo Olivoto, Italian soldier.
03:14And it's said that he died on August 14, 1944.
03:19What was an Italian soldier doing being buried in an American graveyard in World War II?
03:27When you see something like this, it just piques your curiosity.
03:31I had no idea how big it would become.
03:34When the United States Army began construction here in 1898, many considered it a remote outpost.
03:45That would soon change.
03:48At the start of World War II, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this was one of the main avenues for soldiers and material to be sent across to the Pacific.
04:00Port companies, which were American soldiers trained to unload and offload ships in combat zones, were preparing in Seattle to deploy to the war in the Pacific.
04:16This is Fort Laughton.
04:2220,000 troops, including these port companies, were stationed here.
04:27But reflecting wider society, they were not all treated equally.
04:32More than one million African-American men and women served during World War II.
04:38But at this point in history, the military is still legally segregated.
04:44The United States Army tried to keep black soldiers in subservient roles and away from combat.
04:54In 1943, following the Allied victory in North Africa, huge numbers of Italian soldiers were captured.
05:17Many of them were brought to Fort Laughton as POWs.
05:23This building would have had not just Americans, but a considerable number of Italian prisoners of war.
05:29Those who were willing to pledge allegiance to the Allies were given the opportunity to work in return for pay, and they formed what were called Italian service units.
05:44The Italian soldiers, for the most part, absolutely loved being here.
05:49Italy was poor, it was at war, but here they were given meals, they were treated pretty well.
05:56But the gravestone in the fort's cemetery hints that relations at the base were strained.
06:05Guglielmo Olivotto, now buried here, was part of the 28th Italian service unit stationed at Fort Laughton.
06:15They lived in barracks in a remote corner of the base, right next to the segregated black American port companies.
06:22August 14, 1944 was a big day for these black soldiers, because on August 15th, they were supposed to ship out.
06:32As soldiers and sailors have done since the dawn of time, here are some soldiers who are going to cut loose in town before shipping out.
06:44At the very same time, Italians, too, were able to leave the base and do much the same thing.
06:52When both groups returned to the fort that night, it would result in a tragic confrontation.
06:58A couple of drunken black soldiers and a couple of drunken Italian soldiers cross paths in the dark.
07:09Drunken insults are exchanged, and an Italian soldier hits the black soldier hard enough to knock him out.
07:17Other black soldiers started to shout out, hey, we've just been attacked.
07:21There were people who were not just being hit, but beaten and stabbed.
07:27There are serious head injuries.
07:30For 40 minutes, 40 long, long minutes, it was just an all-out melee that should have ended quickly.
07:39But it took an extremely long time until the rest of the military police finally found out that something was going on.
07:46The military police were finally alerted to the riot taking place in this secluded part of the base.
07:54They restored order, but it soon became clear that someone was unaccounted for.
08:02Early in the morning, one Italian soldier was found hanging on some wires on the assault course.
08:10It was the body of Private Guglielmo Aliboto, and he had been lynched.
08:17The prime suspects were the African-American soldiers of the port companies.
08:22400 port company soldiers were imprisoned, while the authorities tried to determine who to charge with rioting and murder.
08:31This is the guardhouse.
08:36The biggest suspects would be housed here, which was the most secure place.
08:42A formidable military lawyer named Leon Jaworski was brought in to prosecute the army's case against 43 black soldiers.
08:51Unlike a civilian trial in America, where you would have 12 jurors of their peers, military courts were made up of officers.
09:02And at that time, they were all white.
09:04And they were there to sit in judgment of these black soldiers who were much lower than them in rank.
09:13Just four months after Aliboto's death, the court reached its verdict.
09:17They found, of the 43 defendants, 28 of them guilty of rioting, and two of them guilty of manslaughter.
09:30The sentences range from six months in prison to 25 years of hard labor.
09:36All but one of the black soldiers convicted were dishonorably discharged.
09:40It seemed that justice had been done.
09:43But when you look closer, you see that that is not what happened here.
09:50It turned out that an important piece of evidence was admitted from the court-martial proceedings.
09:55During their research, Jack and his wife discovered that another branch of the army had investigated the riots and the murder.
10:05Their findings were handed over to the lead prosecutor, Leon Jaworski.
10:10But crucially, not to the defense.
10:13My wife came across this amazing report by General Cook that was classified for 50 years.
10:22And in that big report, we were able to find that the army had every reason to know that these black soldiers pretty much didn't do what they were being accused of.
10:34And beyond that, the reasons the riot went along had all been completely covered up by Leon Jaworski.
10:42Jaworski was a guy who was determined to get a victory, not necessarily justice.
10:48He had convinced this military trial that black soldiers were upset about Italians because they were being given no better rights than these former enemies, these prisoners of war.
11:03But there was more evidence of animosity between white GIs and the Italians, which boiled down to white Americans being resentful of Italian soldiers dating local white women.
11:16They attracted the attention of a lot of the young ladies in Seattle, many of whom's boyfriends or husbands were overseas.
11:23And it was a story really all across America of an increasing resentment of why are these Italians being given so much freedom?
11:32The classified Cook report proved Jaworski had withheld evidence of these tensions from the defense, allowing him to present a one-sided story of these black American soldiers being guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.
11:50It also revealed explosive new evidence about who really murdered Olivoto.
11:57We suddenly realized who had the means, the motive and the opportunity.
12:04One white MP in particular, by the name of Clyde Lomax, the man we later learn was himself quite racist, who disliked the Italians.
12:14He was the one who came across the beginnings of the riot, who decided not to immediately intervene or call for help.
12:22He was the one who disappeared when Olivoto was found missing.
12:28And he was the one who found Olivoto at five o'clock the next morning.
12:33And the U.S. Army has told us since that if he were still alive, they would have prosecuted him for Olivoto's murder.
12:41Jack and his wife published their findings in 2005, shedding new light on the mistrial and scapegoating of all 30 black American soldiers.
12:54In 2007, the U.S. Army Review decided to drop all of the charges.
13:02The Army also granted honorable discharge to the men, but at the time of the ruling, only two of the defendants were actually still alive.
13:11I can't speak for the families except to say that some of them were clearly and understandably overjoyed to know that their husband or father or grandfather had been exonerated from this.
13:22But for many others, it was delayed justice, and delayed justice is not the same as real justice.
13:29In the 1970s, most of Fort Lawton was converted into a city park.
13:41For more than 30 years, citizens of Seattle enjoyed it with little idea of the miscarriage of justice that took place here.
13:52This is the story that belongs to these men who were here, young, away from home, trying to do their duty in a time of war,
14:01and yet having to have this giant injustice for their entire life.
14:06On the Greek island of Heos are clifftop ruins once the scene of a vicious massacre.
14:23We're just a couple of miles inland, but we feel worlds away from the famous beaches and turquoise waters this place is known for.
14:31It's arid and craggy, with steep-sided mountains and deep ravines carved into the landscape.
14:40You can't imagine this was ever an easy place to live.
14:44And then you notice it. It's a town clinging to the hillside.
14:48Given how well it blends with the surroundings, it's pretty clear that this place was designed to be secret and hidden.
14:54Among the devastated remains, there are few clues as to who lived here.
15:01This must have once been a bustling settlement.
15:05It's now a ghost town.
15:09All the buildings have been built right on top of each other.
15:12So the people here were clearly petrified of something, but who or what was it?
15:17For centuries, the residents of this isolated town stayed concealed.
15:25But in the aftermath of a rebellion, they found themselves surrounded by a brutal force hell-bent on revenge.
15:33They were there to carry out the sultan's orders. Complete annihilation.
15:44Archaeologist Olga Vassi has spent more than 30 years unearthing the secrets of this place.
15:51In the 15th century, the island of years suffered from pirates.
15:58There were Catalans, there were Turks, many nationalities, but the raids were frequent.
16:05So people had to withdraw to remote places, invisible from the sea.
16:14But hiding wasn't their only defense.
16:16The town sits upon a rock face at 1,300 feet.
16:21And on either side are these really deep gorges.
16:24And there's only one way in and out, one single gate.
16:29The residents closed the gate.
16:32They were completely protected.
16:34Of course, they could not stand a long siege, but only a raid.
16:39This is the town of Anabatos.
16:41More than two miles inland, hidden inside their mountaintop fortress, the residents were protected from the frequent coastal pirate raids.
16:52But their safety came at a cost.
16:56Life was very hard in Anabatos.
16:58The houses were very small.
17:00There were no amenities at all.
17:03No water supply.
17:05The population built a cistern to store what little rain fell in this arid climate.
17:11It was just enough to eke out an existence.
17:17Anabatos was very poor.
17:19Its residents were farmers.
17:21They are cultivating fig trees, not in big quantities.
17:25And they had sheep, pigs, and cattle.
17:31Cut off from the world, the people here cared little about the Italian merchants who had ruled Hios for centuries.
17:39They continued to speak Greek, and follow the Orthodox faith, as generations before them had done.
17:46For more than a hundred years, life at Anabatos remained relatively unchanged, until 1566 a new empire arrives, the Ottomans.
17:56The Ottoman Empire controlled large swathes of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as much of modern-day Greece.
18:05Its domination of the region brought a new peace to Anabatos.
18:11They had this really powerful navy, so the threat of piracy really dissipated.
18:17This meant that the residents didn't have to cram inside the fortified village for safety.
18:22They could start to spread out and build bigger homes outside the walls.
18:26For more than 200 years, Hios was largely at peace under Ottoman control.
18:32It seemed as if the harsh life of the residents was beginning to ease.
18:39But in the early 1800s, a movement was gathering pace in mainland Greece, which would change the fate of the island.
18:49Over the years, revolutionaries in Greece began to fight and organize for independence, hoping to overthrow their oppressors and gain freedom.
18:57But rebellions are expensive, so they went to wealthy expat communities in the US, Britain and across Europe for support.
19:05After years of gathering resources and people, on March 25th, 1821, a national uprising began.
19:14But not on Hios.
19:15There were more than 100,000 people living on Hios, who were now in an impossible position.
19:24Their island was more than 100 miles across the Aegean Sea from mainland Greece, where the rebellion had launched.
19:31Turkey, home of the Ottoman Empire, was far closer.
19:35Teos is just a little more than four miles across the water from mainland Turkey.
19:40If they took up arms against their occupiers, they're incredibly vulnerable to Ottoman attack.
19:46But in March 1822, the Greek Revolution arrived, whether they liked it or not.
19:52A band of rebels from the nearby island of Samos landed here and began launching attacks on the Ottomans.
20:01People from Samos persuaded local people to join the revolution.
20:06But they were not ready. They had no weapons. They had nothing.
20:11The Ottomans responded by sending tens of thousands of troops to the island.
20:16Their orders were to unleash hell on rebels and civilians alike.
20:22It would become known as the Kios massacre.
20:26No place of the island remained untouched.
20:29Wherever they met people, they killed them.
20:33For two weeks, their army would massacre, torture and imprison thousands and completely level towns.
20:41And Avatos wouldn't be spared either.
20:43In April 1822, Ottoman soldiers had made it to the foot of the mountain.
20:52When they saw them approaching, the residents, terrified, retreated behind the old fortified walls.
20:58The attack was only for revenge.
21:01And Avatos was not a military station.
21:04They knew nothing about arms.
21:06So they were really panicked.
21:09This was now a siege, with only one way in or out.
21:15The petrified inhabitants had no idea how long they could hold out.
21:21But a traitor within their ranks soon crushed their last hopes of survival.
21:26It's said that someone was bribed to betray the town by unlocking the gate.
21:32Suddenly, the Ottoman troops are rushing inside, and their orders are kill or enslave the population of the town.
21:39They came in, and they slaughtered the residents.
21:47Some people ran into the church because they thought that since a church is a sacred place, it would be respected.
21:55But it was not.
21:56These soldiers simply set light to the church, burning to death everyone that was sheltering inside.
22:06Tradition says that the floor of the church still bears the blood of the people slaughtered.
22:16But that wasn't the end of the horror.
22:18We are standing now on the top of the hill.
22:25There's a legend that some people tried to escape slavery by jumping from the cliffs.
22:33It's said that they've jumped to their death rather than meeting such a horrible fate.
22:38In the aftermath of the Heos massacre, the population of Anavatos and the island was decimated.
22:49It's said that 25,000 were killed, 45,000 enslaved, and tens of thousands more fled.
22:58Four-fifths of the population gone.
23:02News of what had happened here spread like wildfire around the world.
23:06And rallied support for the Greek cause.
23:11People from France, from America, started to support more strongly the idea of the Greek independence war.
23:20And this led to the final victory.
23:23In 1832, Greece finally gained its freedom.
23:27But Heos wasn't included in the treaty.
23:30After the devastating response to the uprising, little opposition remained on the island.
23:37And it stayed under Ottoman control for another 80 years.
23:41Those who survived continued to live in Anavatos, but soon disaster would strike once more.
23:47Only 50 years after this horrible massacre, there was a massive earthquake.
23:54This might have been in living memory for those who had survived the massacre.
23:58And now much of this medieval town has been reduced to rubble.
24:01In the years after the quake, some of the town's residents settled at the bottom of the hill, while others departed for good.
24:11Leaving the ancient settlement to fall further into ruin.
24:14Since 1998, Olga and her team have been working to excavate and restore the abandoned old town.
24:28While many of these buildings have been for years devoid of life, one person was drawn to the quiet majesty of this ghost town.
24:36Mrs. Smaragda first visited Anavatos as a child in 1949, long before there were paved roads here.
24:47Seeking a peaceful retirement, she returned in the 1990s to make it her home, with only her animals for company.
24:56In the heart of London, on the banks of the River Tape,
25:20in the heart of london on the banks of the river thames stands a towering structure witness to the
25:30city's darkest days in an area of modern skyscrapers there's this 10-story art deco building
25:42it's imposing striking and looks entirely out of place
25:48it sits right on the waterfront and you can imagine that the river was crucial to its original purpose
25:55but inside the vast edifice there is little evidence of what that purpose was
26:02it's like something out of a dystopian movie with these massive holes in the floor there are deadly
26:11consequences if you're not careful once a vital lifeline for the city's population this complex
26:19became collateral damage during a brutal war but the greatest danger would not come from afar but
26:29right next door the catastrophe holds the record for the largest single explosion in london
26:36at one time this was part of the port of london which was the busiest and the most commercially
26:50successful port probably in the entire world fiona rule has spent over a decade studying this historic
26:58area known as silvertown silvertown was part of the port of london which was an enormous complex of
27:07enclosed stocks warehouses and factories that lay along the banks of the thames it would become the beating
27:16heart of the capital city's trade and manufacturing but in the early 1800s this future seemed inconceivable
27:24unbelievable that docklands were a radical solution to the growing problem of the thames goods and
27:33materials were flooding in from every corner of the british empire ships were fighting for space the port
27:39of london was thrown into chaos silvertown was uninhabited marshland which many thought was impractical to
27:47develop but a visionary engineer named george parker bidder believed it could be transformed into a dock capable of
27:56handling hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping every year it would cost more than a hundred and twenty
28:03million pounds in today's money constructors began to dig deep to drain the marshland the new victoria dock opened in
28:151855 it became a hive of activity providing thousands of jobs over the next 50 years many factories were built
28:24and hundreds of thousands of workers flocked to new neighborhoods created in the area among them was the
28:32family that built this structure vernon and sons wanted to construct a building that would be the perfect example
28:40of its kind in 1905 they opened millennium mills it was one of the largest bread flour factories in europe
28:52when it was in operation the grain would have been taken right up to the top floor and then as it was being
29:01processed it would come down floor by floor the mill was built using a revolutionary construction material
29:09reinforced concrete its strength and durability even under extreme temperatures guarded against the
29:17dangers of the mechanized flour making process because of the heat friction and very fine particles of grain
29:26dust floating around in the air these mills were particularly susceptible to fires and even violent
29:33explosions despite the owners best efforts a tragic accident would lay waste to millennium mills but
29:42it didn't come from inside these walls at the beginning of world war one the ministry of munitions were looking
29:49for a place where they could produce their munitions they identified a building just a few hundred yards away
29:55this factory began producing vast quantities of an explosive called tnt in the heart of silvertown surrounded by
30:04thousands of homes and businesses it was a risky decision but in the name of the war effort the ministry pressed
30:11ahead anyway in 1917 a fire broke out detonating 50 tons of tnt the blast could be felt right across London and the
30:23shopways heard over 100 miles away an organist at the finsbury park empire which is some miles away
30:29from here was said to have been blown off his seat just 350 yards away millennium mills sat directly in
30:38the blast zone burning debris was sent hurtling out of the factory and some of it landed on the mills setting
30:46in fire to the grain silos and the warehouses many other buildings were also set alight in the area and
30:52this overwhelmed the firefighters and the mill was left to burn it was London's largest recorded explosion
31:02the entire area and the mills lay in ruins the blast tragically killed 73 people and injured 400 more
31:13thousands of people were left homeless
31:19out of the ashes millennium mills rebuilt its operation bigger than ever renovating the entire structure
31:27but soon it would be caught in the crosshairs once more
31:32the mill had recovered from the silvertown explosion but by the end of the 1930s a new war was on the horizon
31:40the mills would soon fall victim to the devastating new face of war the blitz as german bombers reached
31:47london in 1940 they set their sights on civilian targets to cause as much damage as possible and
31:54millennium mills and victoria dock became prime targets the dotlands were the most heavily bombed
32:01part of london with over 25 000 bombs dropped on this area alone on the 7th of september 1940 the millennium
32:09mill sustained every damage despite the carnage caused by hitler's luftwaffe in 1953 the mill was
32:20rebuilt a second time and it entered a period of great prosperity and productivity between 1953 and
32:291980 peak flower production reached 3000 tons of flour per week however the boom wouldn't last and the next
32:38threat to millennium mills came not as destruction but replacement the demise of the port of london can
32:47be summed up in one word containerization once these enormous ships started to be used they were simply too
32:55big to get down the tens with this development london's central dots saw a steady decline
33:03in 1993 the mills finally closed their doors for the last time
33:11for many years these towering structures remained abandoned as the modern city grew around them
33:17but their haunting decay would soon find them a place on the silver screen these ruins piqued the interest
33:26of some big names in hollywood the derelict mills featured in stanley kubrick's full metal jacket
33:33the batman and many other films today there are plans to transform them into a hub of work and creative
33:41spaces surrounded by thousands of new homes these developments will bring a new chapter of regeneration
33:49to this site which has followed the remarkable journey of industrial britain
33:58in the rural town of fillmore wisconsin is a compound with links to a national sensation
34:12we're in the beautiful wisconsin countryside it's a small community but a look at the graveyard will
34:18tell you this place has deep roots
34:22by the main road a timber framed structure appears to stand alone this building has almost a european look
34:31to it this is the kind of architecture you'd see in england or the german states in the 1600s
34:38but it's very rare in the united states you see the remains of a large cellar behind the building
34:44the product that was made here would become something of a sensation across the country
34:50but the changes it brought about would shift the country's political landscape into what we see today
34:55retired history professor michael besch first visited this unusual structure in 2019
35:09i came out here looked at the place and i got drawn in he quickly realized there was more here than
35:17initially meets the eye it's become quite a journey we're discovering something every time we come here
35:25many of the original buildings now lie in ruins but the central structure gave michael a clear
35:32indication of their roots it's what we call a half timber construction so you've got timbers going
35:40crosswise and then filled in the middle with bricks and then they also put stucco over the top
35:47it was erected by a man named ernst classic he was part of a wave of immigrants fleeing europe for wisconsin
35:57after a series of failed revolutions in 1848 in germany many residents believed they would find better
36:05prospects if they could emigrate to the united states by 1854 more than 200 000 germans had made the journey to
36:13the u.s in fact from 1830 to around world war one about 90 percent of german immigrants chose the u.s as
36:21their home many of these germans brought with them the knowledge and skills for a life in agriculture and
36:27naturally they wanted to migrate to the areas where they could buy land affordably this brought them to
36:33michigan wisconsin minnesota the whole upper midwest became a plan where you were as likely to hear
36:42german in your local market as english ernst quickly settled down in eastern wisconsin and started a
36:50family farm in the image of his previous home in 1850 he married another german liberta petch and they
36:58began building saxonia house this construction was common in the area that the family came from
37:07which is in saxonia in germany well it was totally unique for this part of the country it was much
37:14more than just a family home the size of the structure reflects its function as an inn the local church
37:22and a space capable of hosting social gatherings at its heart was a product the driving force behind the
37:31whole operation tucked away in the trees are the remnants of this business it was actually built
37:39by hollowing out a hillside building the archway over the top so it's a built cave this cave was part of
37:47a brewery ernst constructed in 1860. it produced a drink completely new to many across the united states
37:56this was a beer produced at lower temperatures and it produced a lighter crisper drink a lager
38:04german-style lager was relatively unfamiliar to the u.s drinker who generally preferred until the 1880s
38:12more british styles like ales but this new refreshing effervescent drink would take the country by storm
38:19if you look at some of the famous names in american beer like pabst schlitz miller those companies got
38:27their start during this era at saxonia house the classics business was becoming a considerable operation
38:36and they had the capacity to produce about a thousand barrels a year saxonia was a social hub reflecting
38:44german traditions with drinking and dancing but this lifestyle wasn't embraced by everyone on one hand
38:52there was a lot of alcohol abuse in the 19th century to a degree that might shock people today but there
38:58was also a strong temperance movement that really descended from the values of the puritans who had
39:05settled new england so a lot of those people were suspicious of these hardy immigrants getting together
39:12and brewing this beer and enjoying these oversized mugs of refreshing lager on a sunday afternoon
39:22this tension didn't just happen in wisconsin but across the country as german taverns
39:29and beer became more and more popular so-called nativist parties such as the know nothing party
39:36were gaining traction running on an anti-liquor anti-immigration ticket they began to crack down on
39:45taverns on beer drinking and on this kind of culture in general in chicago in the summer of 1855 tensions
39:56came to a head in what became known as the lager beer riot these riots were a response to increased
40:04licensing fees but also sunday closure laws a protest by supporters of eight german saloon keepers
40:13who had broken these laws sparked a brutal police crackdown ordered by the nativist mayor
40:20it resulted in one death and several dozen arrests these shocking events mobilized immigrant voters
40:27across the midwest groups began to meet at places like saxonia house to discuss politics
40:35these german immigrant activists were known as 48ers inspired by the 1848 revolutions that had swept
40:43across europe 48ers were known in germany as people who pushed for democracy and human rights
40:50so they found a natural home here in the u.s in a growing political party
40:54they called themselves the republican party the party had formed in nearby ripon wisconsin and the
41:0348ers were at the heart of its development their overriding idea was freedom self-expression ability
41:11to pursue your own interest your own desires your own business so those ideas would have been talked about
41:19this republican party would become the driving force to ending slavery the conflicts over which of course
41:28led to the civil war through that period saxonia house continued to operate as a tavern because of
41:33course the civil war didn't have as much of a disruptive impact in regions like this ernst klesik died in
41:421864 and his wife took over the running of the brewery with her new husband but by the early 1900s
41:50the family had moved on for good the building and farm changed hands several times subsequently
41:57eventually it was left vacant and began to fall into disrepair
42:00in the late 90s the classic family's descendants held a reunion at saxonia house about 400 family
42:13members showed up and one of the first things they decided was we have to restore this whole place
42:19the friends of saxonia house was created and they purchased this land in 1999 in addition to the house
42:27there are plans to build and restore other buildings on the property to make it a visitor's attraction
42:33and of course there will be a beer hall
42:57so
43:03you
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