The Winooski Falls Mill District is known for its industrial history — the riverbanks are still lined with massive textile mills and towering smokestacks. In mid-October, the skyline on the Burlington side changed when a 175-foot-tall crane from Hutch Crane Service in Bradford moved in next to the Chace Mill's iconic brick smokestack. Built in the early 1900s, the stack hasn't operated for decades. Recently, falling bricks made repairs essential.
Redstone, the owner of the 90,000-square-foot Chace Mill, hired Jonathan Brownell and Will Devereux of White Falcon Solutions in Vergennes to repoint the bricks in the stack and make it waterproof. They did the work from a 4-foot-4-inch-square metal basket called a man basket, or a personnel basket, that was held aloft by a cable attached to a 100,000-pound crane controlled by Rick Hutchins. He's been operating cranes for 38 years. The entire job took a little more than three weeks, with interruption from one brief snowstorm.
In her latest episode of "Stuck in Vermont," Seven Days senior multimedia producer Eva Sollberger caught a ride with the masons in their basket on a sunny afternoon. They squeezed lime mortar from a bag, filling the cracks between the bricks, and waited for it to dry before scraping off the excess. The entire time, the basket swayed in the breeze, about 135 feet in the air. The epic views of the Winooski River, the Champlain Mill, the Woolen Mill and the city of Winooski were worth the trip.
Sollberger spoke with Seven Days about filming the episode.
What interested you in this project?
I live near the Chace Mill and was excited when the crane moved in next to the smokestack. I was keeping an eye on the basket as it swung around to different spots and texting with my neighbors about our new resident. I wanted to find out about the workers, but I also didn't want to disturb them while they were busy. I finally caught them on solid ground, one day before they finished their work with the crane.
As luck would have it, Jonathan is married to a former coworker and had seen some of my videos. He and Will suggested that I take a ride up that same day, because the next day's weather forecast was not as good. In a way, that was best because I didn't have a lot of time to second-guess it.
Are you scared of heights?
I am a big baby when it comes to scaling tall places. Nonetheless, the story is my priority, and I know it helps my stories to go up to the top of the Statehouse dome or film from the basket of a hot-air balloon — whatever the situation calls for. So I knew I had to go up in the basket, and I'm really glad I did — even if I was afraid to look down for most of the trip. Rick assured me that everything is inspected regularly, and I was also strapped into a safety harness. Nonetheless, I worried that the basket floor was going to fall out from under me. I'm very grateful to Jonathan and Will for making space for me and my neuroses in that small basket while they worked.
Those were some great views up there.
We call this neighborhood "Burlinski" because many people think we are part of nearby Winooski. You really can't beat those vistas. The mills are such a big presence in this neighborhood, combined with the green from the forests and, of course, the river that winds through it all. I was pleased to see my house from up there, as well. It's funny how being at that height makes everything down below look like a Monopoly board game.
How many trips up did you take?
I got to go up to the smokestack twice because we had to go back down for a knife to cut the grout bag tip. And Rick gave us a scenic route over the water and up to the stack. He truly does have a steady hand and kept the ride very smooth. But once we were up at the stack and the masons were working, the swinging of the basket in the wind was noticeable. When we were back on solid land, I had Jell-O legs from the rocking motion. Will said he had that sensation for the three weeks he was working in the basket.
Did you learn about the history of the Chace Mill?
I tried to find out when this smokestack was built. It is confusing because there were a number of older mills and chimneys in that same location that were destroyed by fire. What is now called the Chace Mill was built in 1892. Our neighborhood historian, David Cawley, sent me a lot of helpful info about the mill. According to maps, the smokestack was built between 1900 and 1906. The cotton mills used massive steam boilers to supplement the water power and drive the machinery. When I see this smokestack rising majestically above the river, it reminds me of how the mills shaped our community.
The original print version of this article was headlined "Don't Look Down | Repairing a historic smokestack from a floating basket"
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Bio: Seven Days senior multimedia producer Eva Sollberger has been making her award-winning video series, "Stuck in Vermont," since 2007. New episodes appear on the Seven Days website every other Thursday and air the following night on the WCAX evening news. Sign up at sevendaysvt.com to receive an email alert each time a new one drops. And check these pages every other week for insights on the episodes.