Blacksmith Shop -
'Heating and beating' are blacksmith's skills
By Tom Johnston, staff writer Pioneer Press, Thursday, November 11, 2004
Jim Siebert's love of blacksmithing is more straight forward than the hot metal he bends. "I just like working with hot metal, forming metal, working with hammer and anvil, working with my hands," he said.
The Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, tool-and-die maker has for the last two years worked for the Barrington Area Historical Society as a blacksmith at the agency's 212 W. Main St. quarters on the west edge of downtown Barrington.
Siebert, who started out as a horseshoe maker, works between noon and 4 p.m. on Saturdays from May through December. He makes, among other things, horseshoes, candle holders, coat hooks, and decorative signs the society either uses or sells.
To Siebert, his job is pretty simple. "It's heating and beating, that’s bout it,” he says. Usually, about 25 to 30 people make their way into the shop when Siebert is working. For some reason, they tend to want to witness Siebert make horse shoes. “It seems like everybody that comes in wants to see horse shoes being made,” he said “And if younger people want to try, I’ll get them started by making horse shoes.
Siebert does his work in the historical society’s Village Blacksmith Shop. It is a reproduction of Creet Blacksmith Shop, the area’s first working blacksmith shop that opened before the Civil War on Station Street, Siebert uses the original forge from Wichman’s Blacksmith Shop, the village’s last working blacksmith shop built in 1929 on Station Street.
After either moving entirely or recreating the buildings on its Main Street campus in 1999, the Barrington Area Historical Society proudly possesses these prized buildings at its “Old Barrington Center” living history complex.
