The only snowflakes seen in Butler so far this holiday season have been the ones adorning lamp posts along Main Street.

The 80 illuminated snow crystals lining the city’s main thoroughfare from Wayne to Brady streets are the result of two years of fundraising and renovation efforts on the part of the Butler Downtown organization, local businesses and volunteers.

Jeff Geibel, outgoing president of Butler Downtown, said, “The snowflakes have been around forever. They go back decades. The current ones we have, it’s estimated they date back to the 1990s.”

“These snowflakes have been in use since the early 1990s,” said Krista Washkau, the board secretary of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that aims to revitalize Butler’s downtown.

Butler Downtown started the project in 2020, when the city installed new black light poles along Main Street. The 20 extra poles meant some went without snowflakes.

Geibel said, “In early 2021, Butler Downtown decided to take on the project to purchase more snowflake ornaments.”

Washkau said her group raised money with its “Christmas in July” event in the downtown’s Diamond Park. Between sponsors, donations from the community and the sale of Christmas ornaments, the group raised $18,000.

The money, and then some, would be needed when the group set out to both buy new ornaments and recondition the old snowflakes.

“We bought 20 units at $700 apiece. We were surprised out how expensive they were,” Geibel said.

The new ornaments weren’t quite the same as the old ones, and the bulbs on the two didn’t match, but all the light poles were decorated last year.

Geibel said the second phase got underway in 2022 with the restoration of the older snowflakes.

“They were stripped of all bulbs, and the wires thrown out. They were sandblasted and powder-coated and the new wiring and bulbs were added,” he said. The new bulbs also allowed the older ornaments’ lights to now match the newer snowflakes.

Because of a liaison between Butler Downtown and the Slippery Rock University SUCCEED office, SRU student volunteers pulled off the bulbs and wiring in April, using the parking garage behind the downtown Rite Aid drugstore as a work area.

The bare frames were then taken to Keystone Ridge Designs, 670 Mercer Road, where, Geibel said, “They generously agreed to pay their people to sandblast and powder-coat the snowflakes. If we had to pay for that service it would have been exorbitant.”

Artie Slear, president of Keystone Ridge Designs, said he knew Geibel through Butler Downtown getting a Christmas tree for Diamond Park every year from his property.

Slear said it took two days to sandblast the old snowflakes and another day to powder-coat them, a process where an electrostatic charge and heat bond pigment to the metal.

“We’re very involved with the community, and we feel we want to help the community any way we can with these projects,” he said.

Then the snowflakes were taken to Butler Technologies, 231 W. Wayne St., where the frames were rewired and 6,000 LED bulbs installed.

Courtney Houtz, marketing manager for Butler Technologies said CEO Tristan Tripodi met with Geibel to find out how Butler Technologies could support them and get more involved with the community. “He learned of the snowflake project and volunteered our team to help rewire the freshly coated snowflakes. The Butler community has given so much support and love to our company, so we're always happy to give back in any way we can.”

Houtz said about 30 people, half the Butler Technologies staff, were involved in the project which took seven weeks to complete.

“A special shoutout goes to our assembly department, who did the majority of the rewiring, and Amber Omstead, procurement specialist, who sits on the Butler Downtown board and coordinated the project,” Houtz said.

“The 60 older units are as good as new, After all the work, Geibel said. “They should last a generation at least.”

Washkau said additional money for the project was raised in March during Downtown Butler’s Bowl for Butler event that raised $10,000 that went back into the project.

The 80 snowflake decorations went up along Main Street beginning at 5 a.m. Nov. 23 with the help of 20 volunteers and workers and trucks from Armstrong Cable.

Allen Hassler, the general manager of Armstrong Cable in Butler, said multiple trucks and multiple workers from the cable company helped with the ornaments.

“It’s a good hour to two hours. It really depends on how many volunteers show up,” Hassler said. “It’s not too bad nowadays. The light poles are made with a bracket that the ornament slips into.”

Hassler said Armstrong Cable also aids smaller municipalities in the county with the installation of their Christmas decorations.

“We like to keep a low profile. We don’t do it for the credit,” he said.

Butler’s snowflakes will remain up until Jan. 11. Geibel said the ornaments will be stored on the fourth floor of the former Butler County Ford building. Although it’s now Cochran Ford, Denny and Cathy Glasgow, the former dealership owners, still own the building. Since the ornaments are stored on racks the size of minivans, Geibel said he’s glad the storage space is still available.

“The common theme is that it took a collaboration between local businesses, the organization and volunteers to make this happen,” said Geibel. Other than the presence of a police car during the snowflake installation, Geibel said no city employees or funding was used in the project.