2021 Big Button Hunt Clues

A giant Thank You to Erik Larsen for creating this year’s clues!
Here’s what our Big Button Hunt seekers were looking for:

1. Bank

The key to this puzzle is knowing the history of the town, so let us begin with something vaulted.  While you can’t go inside, there once was a time this was the safest place in town.

2. Paul Sramek’s Store (Mayor Betsy Crabb’s Place) – This storefront actually came out to Main Street, at some point it was torn back to where it is now.

Businesses have come and gone but this former farm supply store actually shrank in size.  What was once a sales floor of supplies, hardware, and farm machinery is now a grassy yard.  Once you could find flour and feed here, now you can meet a namesake from the sea.

3. Paul Sramek Memorial (The Manor) – Before the Manor was built, there was a fieldstone and concrete obelisk with a plaque on it memorizing Paul Sramek.  I’ve tried to locate a picture of it but haven’t had any luck.

The proprietor of the last location had a hand in many local ventures, and when his time came his family sought to honor him in a public Manor.  The obelisk they built may not stand today, because as time marches on, sometimes the past must give way.

4. Sinclair Sign – One like this used to stand at the Corner of Main and 133.

For a dime or a quarter you could call the world over while gazing from your booth across the way.  Advertising automotive service to one and all, this Dino stood tall though he no longer stands today. 

8. Schleinitz Store – Opposite the bank

This trip through past now concludes with one final clue here at last.  This location has held many vocations, some commercial, some federal, and some residential.  The name in the stone shows who first called this home

5. Berweger’s Cheese Factory – This stood where Paul Mueller’s Saw Mill is now.

Ashes and aspens, tamaracks and firs, today there is sawdust and shavings where once there were curds. 

6. The Old, “Old School” – This was the “Original” school, it stood on the lot just north of the current one. (Gus & Betsy Wells’ lot).

Just as mortar and brick outlast plaster and lath, our school seems of two parts.  But they are in truth, due to their youth the latter two thirds of our schools.  While people may recall band and study hall, few realize the first Meadowlands School no longer stands.  But on this site children laugh day and night, and play just as they did before.

7. Meadowlands Theater – Between Schneiderman’s and the current Post Office.

A long way from the glamor and the lights, farmers and wives spent their nights taking in the sights to be seen.  Whether Bogie and Bacall or others posted on the wall, there was always something to see.  Called the “Deluxe” it seems kind of nuts that you could even sit in the mezzanine.