Escondido Gives Recognition to Vanishing Craft

The art of blacksmithing found a permanent home in Escondido after the City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to accommodate the Bandy Blacksmith Shop in the city’s historical park.

The shop, which first opened in 1908, had been torn down over the summer as part of the city’s Civic Center project. Now, a smaller version of the shop will be resurrected as a museum and a facility for teaching blacksmithing.

“I’d like to see the trade perpetuated. Certainly people aren’t going to go into it to make any money . . . but it certainly is still a very necessary skill,” said Phil Ewing, who had owned and operated the shop from 1967 until this year.

Ewing and others are donating equipment and parts of the original building to the Escondido Historical Society, which will oversee the operation of the museum in Grape Day Park on North Broadway.

Organizers hope to hold weekly classes at the facility through the Escondido Adult School, with Ewing as the teacher.

“We’ve been contacted by at least 15 to 20 people who expressed an interest in taking the class,” said Norm Syler, executive director of the historical society.

The only other blacksmithing classes in Southern California are offered in Vista. There are six other facilities that teach the craft elsewhere in the state, according to the California Blacksmiths Assn.

Classes may start as soon as next fall and the reconstruction of the shop will cost about $50,000, to be raised by private donations, Syler said.

Although the craft of blacksmithing is historic, most agree that the building, constructed in 1947, is not, and some members of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission expressed concerns about the Bandy building taking up valuable space in the historical park.

“This will probably be the last building that will be put in Grape Day Park, and we have to be careful how it is done, and that it is done properly,” said Harris Evans, a member of the commission.

Others felt that the building wasn’t aesthetically pleasing.

“It isn’t a really pretty looking, and it is a big structure . . . but, well, at least it’s authentic,” said Rick Mercurio, chairman of the commission.

But Mercurio said the commission must take advantage of the availability of the structure, whose parts now are stored in a city warehouse.

“Other people may have wanted to put a historical structure there, but you take these opportunities as they come, and this opportunity may not be here tomorrow,” Mercurio said.