Where can we find help to save this endangered species?

To the Editor:

Once again, history is being lost — it is being given away because of lack of funding support.

Located in Western Maryland, is the Lonaconing Silk Mill, known as the Klotz Throwing Factory — the only remaining, totally intact, silk mill in the nation — a site that, to this day, appears exactly the way it did when the mill was closed in 1957 as a result of a labor dispute.

The silk machines, office equipment, timecards, and even the personal items of the employees, remain inside this historical building.

For nearly three decades, one man, Mr. Herbert Crawford of Lonaconing, has owned and lovingly maintained this silk mill, using his own financial resources, while the citizens of Lonaconing have valiantly sought support to save this historical silk mill — a mill that is part of an early 20th century industrial American dynasty that no longer exists.

Even though their struggle continues and this site has been identified by Preservation Maryland as an “endangered species,” still no action has been taken to support this quest to restore a great part of American History.

Here, we have a community, a town, and citizens who have been struggling not only to preserve their heritage but the heritage of the American people.

A town with a rich Indian and coal mining history; the infamous historical Iron Furnace listed in the National Register of Historic Places (the first in the United States to successfully use bituminous coal and coke in the smelting process); the home town of Robert Moses “Lefty” Grove, who was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1947 and selected as the greatest left-handed pitcher in 1969, in connection with the Baseball Centennial; the home of sculptor George Conlon who was reported to have made a bust of Maryland Gov. Edwin Warfield from the plastic clay that was used to plug holes in the mine walls and later in his career awarded the prestigious Rinehart Scholarship; and last, but not least, the home of Ruth Bear Levy, artist, who exhibited her art in Peale Museum and Easton Art Gallery.

Yet, while the struggle of this community continues to secure $30,000 for a roof to help save the only existing industrial silk mill in the nation, I wish I could understand why there appears to be no difficulty or obstacles in securing ample funding for corporations, banks, or individuals who receive million dollar bonuses, provide fully funded expensive resort trips for their “best customers,” and who are continuing to be greedy, mismanaging, squandering, or abusing their profits; then, lay off their employees because they need to cut back.

Where is the accountability? These abuses of power, I do not comprehend. Nor do I comprehend why small companies, with hard working employees, are not provided financial support instead of the powerful, abusive corporations who continue to fail.

I could, however, better understand cutting off the funding to the larger corporations to provide financial support to this community and other communities that would help preserve our heritage, while stimulating needed employment and business opportunities for the growth of the American workers.

Kathleen Erkert

Brookeville