Friends Of Raymer Is Awarded Grant To Restore Mercantile

New Raymer’s Centre Avenue will be receiving a boost soon. The Truxaw and Kruger Grocery / Seldin’s Cash Grocery building has just been awarded a $191,357 grant! This grant is one of only 20 grants to be funded this round through the State Historic Fund, created in 1990 through the approval of gaming in Colorado.  More than 75% of the grants administered by the SHF are currently allocated to the rural areas of Colorado. 

The awardee is the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization Friends of Raymer. Organized in 2017 to preserve and restore the buildings along historic Centre Avenue in New Raymer, Friends of Raymer has been hard at work preserving the heritage of the area and sharing the local history with visitors and youth in the area.  The group’s first project, the Truxaw & Kruger Grocery/Seldin’s Cash Grocery Store, is a two-story wooden false-front building typical of frontier towns.  It is one of the few remaining in this area. The group has devoted the last five years to various grants and fundraising in an effort to restore this building along with the Star Filling Station and the Raymer State Bank, designated on the National and State Historic Registers, respectively. The Truxaw building has also been added to the State Historic Register. 

The three historic buildings occupy one intersection along Centre Avenue in the tiny town of New Raymer. The goal to is make all three buildings usable spaces for the community again. The Truxaw building was the first building built when the town was platted in 1910, then known as Truxaw & Kruger Grocery, and later Seldin’s Cash Grocery.  It began as a mercantile selling dry goods, groceries, and everyday staples, with the merchant’s family living upstairs.

The grant funding will allow the building to be restored to an era when New Raymer saw its heyday. Plans include installing a small library extension with support from the High Plains Library District and a museum in the front of the building made to resemble the old-time post office and mercantile.

The Friends of Raymer has been working with the State Historic Fund for several years, applying and receiving several grants as part of the process that is required by the fund when restoring a building. Since 2018 when the building was listed on the State Register of Historic Places, the Friends of Raymer applied for and received a $12,000 grant for a Historic Structure Assessment, a $35,000 grant for construction documents prepared by Architect, Barbara Darden, and a $50,000 grant to begin the construction on the building by stabilizing the foundation. Jon Sargent of Deep Roots Craftsmen has been working to ensure that the foundation has been updated this fall and winter.

This large grant of $191,357 was awarded by History Colorado and requires a cash match of $63,786.  Friends of Raymer would like to thank all their donors such as local businesses and residents, as well as the challenge grants received from the Boettcher Foundation and the Gates Family Foundation. The small nonprofit depends entirely upon the support of their community to make these projects a reality.

In years to come, it is the Friends of Raymer’s goal to restore Centre Avenue to its former role as a vital part of this community once again. More information can be found about this project as well as the other projects they have been working on at http://friendsofraymer.com.