Nuclear Plant To Revive Ghost Town
By Sarah Marloff | Online Only | Mar. 3, 2011
After sitting abandoned for more than three decades, the historic village of Frick's Lock in East Coventry Township, Pa., soon will show signs of life. Last month, Exelon Nuclear, the current owners of the empty village, signed an agreement with the township to stabilize, rehabilitate, and protect several of Chester County's oldest buildings.
Founded more than 250 years ago, Frick's Lock was a key stop along the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Schuylkill Canal. Most of the village's 10 existing buildings were built c. 1825, and one—built c.1757—predates the canal. Frick's Lock was a functioning village until the early 1980s, when Limerick Nuclear Power Plant moved in just across the river.
"There were about 20, maybe 30 households in Frick's Lock at the time," says Dave Kimmerly, field representative for Preservation Pennsylvania and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "The plant came in and bought everyone out because the village falls in the Exclusion Zone," a one-mile radius around nuclear power plants. Ever since, the village has been a ghost town.
In 2003 Frick's Lock was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a community task force was "created to do something with the village," says Kimmerly says. "There was an awful lot of vandalism because there was nothing keeping people out."
Finally, after nearly three years of monthly meetings between Exelon (which now owns the Limerick Power Plant), Preservation Pennsylvania, township officials, and other preservationists, several buildings in Frick's Lock will be stabilized.
"This is a very important project for us," says Joseph Szafran, Excelon spokesman. "Most of the rehabilitation will take place in 2012, and the village will hopefully be open for public tours by 2013."
Exelon has agreed to spend $2.5 million to restore the exterior of several buildings as stabilized ruins. A fence will be built around the grounds, and the corporation is donating four houses to the township, worth an estimated $1 million. In addition, the corporation has agreed to continue to do routine maintenance on the village, "so it doesn't fall apart again," Kimmerly says.
For more photos, stories, and tips, subscribe to the print edition of Preservation magazine.
Subscribe to the Today's News RSS feed
Comments
