SIDNEY — A boy who learns to love history may grow into a man with a passion for preserving that history. Mark Cottrel is such a man.
His love of history began as a child growing up near Pemberton.
“I always enjoyed reading, and I think it’s a shame that the younger generation doesn’t read many books. If you had a book, one day you could be a pirate. The next day you could be a frontiersman. The joy of reading, I think, translated into loving history,” said Cottrel, of Pemberton.
As he grew up, he found a passion for restoring furniture. He sees it as a way to preserve history. Cottrel also collects yardsticks from old businesses in Shelby County. His collection includes a yardstick from the 1903 Shelby County Fair.
“I love the turn of the century when everything was being made of steel, but I also like World War II. The commitment of a nation to fight the war just amazes me. It wasn’t just the men overseas but the people at home, too. A lot of antiques from that time are missing because a lot of things from farm equipment to children’s toys were donated to the war effort to be melted down and turned into bullets,” said Cottrel.
As he was finishing school, he secured a position as a stringer, a freelance writer who contributes to the newspaper, at SDN. Although he didn’t realize it at the time, that job allowed him to preserve history as it was happening.
“When I was in high school, I worked for the Sidney Daily News as a stringer. I worked in the sports department, and then I wrote other stuff, too. I worked with Zach Crusey. He was a writer (sports editor) for Sidney that was known all over the state,” remembers Cottrel.
Finally, Cottrel was employed at the Shelby County County Engineer’s office where he worked for nearly 30 years. It was while Cottrel worked there that he found another way to preserve history. While working on older bridges, Cottrel would often come across signs that had been broken or were just aged. Cottrel decided to restore the signs.
“I’ve always been interested in history and antiques. My dad (Bill “Dollar Bill” Cottrel) was an auctioneer for 50 years in the county, and I started to restore things. When I saw all those old signs just stacked up, I thought I’d rather see them get fixed up than to see them on the next truck going to the scrap yard,” said Cottrel.
Cottrel wanted to save the signs in order to save the history. The signs usually contained the name of the bridge, the name of the County Engineer, and the names of the County Commissioners at the time. Cottrel would sandblast the signs and repaint them. Others were broken, or missing pieces, and he would use two signs to recreate one.
“They were cast iron. That’s when they made things to last. There’s only one steel bridge left in the county, and that’s the one underneath The Big Four. It’s closed off, but it’s the only one still standing,” said Cottrel.
Eventually, the signs were affixed to a wall at the County Engineer’s office where they remain. Cottrel has resumed restoring furniture but is also happy to have helped preserve some pieces of Shelby County history by restoring the signs.
“Just like my antiques, I enjoy taking something that’s broken and putting it back the way it was,” said Cottrel, “I don’t want to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but the younger generation doesn’t collect like I do.”
