Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
tekoa trestle lights
trestle lights working
--Ted Blaszak photos
The Tekoa Trestle is aglow ahead of Christmas, and for the first time it is powered with LED lights. The lights run daily on a timer from 4:30 p.m. to midnight.
A crew works Nov. 18 to install the Tekoa Trestle Christmas lights.
For the third year, the Tekoa Trestle has been decorated Christmas.
A group of volunteers climbed into place Nov. 18 for a streamlined process which included more lights and features than last year.
“Every year it gets better,” said Monte Morgan, vice president of the Tekoa Trail and Trestle Association.
The effort for 2016 included all LED lights and one extension cord strung down from the 115-foot high former railroad bridge to plug in at a residence. The TTTA will pay the homeowner for added electricity costs at the end of the season.
A total of $1,500 was spent on the new lights as well as two wreaths and a tree mechanism the volunteers put together with a 15-foot pole cut by Cliff Melton of Melton Fabrication in Tekoa.
An estimated 800 feet of lights were strung, beginning at 10 a.m. Nov. 18, with the 10 to 12 volunteers finishing about 3:30 p.m.
They fired them up that night.
“We planned originally to wait for after Thanksgiving,” said Morgan.
“It looked so good, we decided to leave them on,” said Ivan Mercer, referred to as the Chief Trestle Engineer.
A former lineman for GTE in the Coeur d'Alene area, Mercer moved to Tekoa three years ago after he retired.
“We took all available safety precautions,” said Ted Blaszak, TTTA president.
To eliminate the need for so many extension cords as in the past two years, Mercer used 500 feet of 10-gauge and 12-gauge outdoor electrical wiring.
Volunteers accessed the closed trestle by laying down a ramp of three 12-foot boards, four boards wide. Some volunteers remained off the trestle, passing supplies to others stringing the lights.
The lights now run every day, on a timer, from 4:30 p.m. until midnight.
With the new LED lights, the previous lights – which were bought by Blaszak – may be auctioned off next year by the group.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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