Club Hauls Control Tower from Grand Forks Airport

It took the men nearly 7 hours to get the cab off its pedestal and moved to Northwood.

It was certainly a long day for members of the Northwood (N.D.) Men's Club as they sought to bring home their 16-ton prize find.

The group recently acquired the rights to the old control tower cab at Grand Forks International Airport. The catch was it had to pay for moving costs, which had proven prohibitive for other would-be takers because of the size of the thing - its 21 feet high and 25 feet wide.

So the club, whose main claim to fame is the organizing of annual demolition derbies and rodeos in Northwood, found seven volunteers among its members, among them someone with a blowtorch and some one else with a semi truck. They sliced the tower cab sideways and moved it on flatbeds down County Road 5 and State Route 15 to the club's "Thunder Grove" facility.

The top half alone weighed 16 tons and the bottom about as much.

It took the men nearly 7 hours to get the cab off its pedestal and moved to Northwood. Being volunteers, they weren't very organized at first, according to club president Kent Knutson. At one point, they had the cab nearly cut in half except for a snag that no one could find for about 15 minutes.

The volunteers still have to take the cab off the trucks today.

Knutson said the cab would make and excellent observation platform for announcers at the derby and rodeo. It should be ready, he said, by July 23 when the derby starts.

The rodeo is Labor Day.

The Grand Forks airport originally took the cab off the main control tower a decade ago and replaced it with a larger cab. The old cab was supposed to serve as an observation deck, but putting in an elevator to make it accessible for the handicap proved too expensive. Airport officials had been waiting for someone to take it away ever since.