The former flour mill and general store in Marwood, Winfield Township, was torn down Friday to make way for a new parking lot for the Butler-Freeport Community Trail.

An aged and sagging brick building finally was torn down Friday in the Marwood neighborhood in Winfield Township, but its long history was recounted by those who recall its heyday.

The former Krause & Sons building along the Butler-Freeport Community Trail, which has stood empty for many years since being built sometime around the turn of the 20th century, was a feed and flour mill, a train station where you could catch a ride to Cabot for a nickel, a post office, a building supply store, and a general store that closed in the 1970s.

“You could buy anything in there,” said David Henschel, 70, who grew up about a quarter-mile from the building. “My brothers and sisters and I used to go get bread and milk for my mother.”

He said that as a child, owner Artie Krause showed him three chutes that carried grain brought on horse and wagon to the second floor to be milled into flour or feed.

“It was a great building, and Artie was a great guy,” Henschel said.

The property will be used as a parking lot for the Butler-Freeport Community Trail, which has a trailhead near the property.

Rebecca Boyd, owner of Freehling Lumber just across the trail from the Krause building, has documents that show her ancestor, W.T. Freehling, bought the Freehling Lumber property in 1896 with Robert Krause, when Marwood was known as Delano Station.The building razed Friday was built shortly thereafter, Boyd said.She said the Krause building has not been used for many years and was in an advanced state of decay.Boyd, who is a South Butler County school board member, said she recalls patronizing the store as a child to buy Popsicles and penny candy.She said a family of raccoons was found to have taken up residence in the building's second floor as it was being razed.“One might have had an injured leg, but (the demolition crew) thinks they got away,” Boyd said.Chris Ziegler, president of the community trail association, said she bought the Krause building in 2018 so the quarter-acre property could be used in some way for trail purposes.

Ziegler said she was sad to see such a huge part of Marwood's history come crashing to the ground.“If anybody knows me, they know how I hang onto old things,” Ziegler said.But she said the building was beyond repair and could not be used as a business per Winfield Township zoning ordinance, because there is no available parking.Ziegler kept the huge elevator that was original to the building and used to transport equipment between floors when it was a grain mill.She said the contraption is one of only two in the county, with the other installed at the Matus building in Saxonburg.Boyd said the elevator was high-tech when it was installed, as it was the first of its kind in the county.Ziegler said she will take the historic elevator home until she figures out what to do with it.She said parking for the trailhead will be available in a few weeks, after the ground is prepared and covered in stone.While she is thrilled to provide a lot for 20 to 25 cars compared to the eight vehicles that could park at the trailhead before, she hated to see the old brick building come down.“I'm super sad about it, but I'm happy about it,” she said. “Probably more happy.”

The former flour mill and general store in Marwood, Jefferson Township, was torn down on Friday to make way for a new parking lot for the Butler-Freeport Community Trail.

The former general store in Marwood, Winfield Township, which was closed in the 1970s, was torn down Friday.