North Platte Post/Sandhills Post
Hershey, Neb. - It's been nearly 9 months since an early March snowstorm caused a partial collapse of the roof of a popular western store, KJ's Boots and Western Wear in Hershey.
The exciting news is that progress is now underway to demolish the current building and start the process of building the new building for the store with the hopes of having it operational in late spring of 2025.
"We're thinking maybe by the end of the week we'll have the metal stripped off of it, and we're hoping by starting next week or so, we'll have maybe pushed it over and then hopefully start cleaning up by the end of next week," said Anthony Kuhlmann, KJ's Boots and Western Wear spokesperson. "So have it [property] probably emptied out tail end of next week to the start of the next, and hopefully by Christmas we'll actually have a pad on the ground so that way we can start construction back up."
When construction starts on the new building, customers may notice that the exterior of the structure might have a bit of a different look but the footprint of the interior of the building is going to look very similar.
KJ's Boots and Western Wear has two parts of the building with the South side being built in 1993 and the North side being built in 1996. The partial collapse occurred on the south end of the building. After clearing out the inventory and having a chance to inspect the building, the Kuhlmann family found out how much damage there was.
"So, at the start we knew the south end was a total loss, the north end; we knew there was going to be some damage to it. As the demo has started, we're starting to see that it was probably a little bit worse than what we had anticipated to begin with and it was probably a good idea that we went ahead and we're going to demo the entire building," said Kuhlmann.
A local crew is overseeing tear down of the building while Vap Construction from Atwood, Kansas will reconstruct the new building.
KJ's Boots and Western Wear was damaged March 7 and 8 when a record amount of snowfall for much of the listening area including Hershey.
In an article published by the POST back in March, co-owner Kevin Kuhlmann had been clearing snow all day and that Friday afternoon was set to clear snow from KJ's parking lot since the store was closed due to the weather. Kuhlmann went inside and saw the southeast side of the building had partially collapsed due to the snow. That's when calls went out for help and a Facebook post was made asking people to come help.
"That was quite the blur when it happened. It started out with just the family up here starting to move things out. We knew we needed to move fast. The next thing I know it was just one person showing up, we didn't know who they were, and then another person showed up and next thing you know," said Kuhlmann. "I would say we easily had a hundred people show up from the community to help us out. The support we got from the community, it was amazing. We couldn't ask for more, a better place to be."
KJ's Boots and Western Wear has been open since June at their second location in North Platte at 601 East Francis Street. The store is open Monday - Saturday from 9:00am - 6:00pm and on Sunday from 1:00pm - 5:00pm.