The Karrer name is a familiar one in our City. Dublin native Carl Karrer was on the board of the Dublin Historical Society and the City’s Architectural Review Board and pitched the idea for a sculpture commemorating the pump that used to be in the middle of the intersection of Bridge and High streets. The resulting work of art – Daily Chores – is scheduled for dedication at 5:30 p.m. June 5. Karrer plans to be in attendance.
Dublin Life: When did you live in Dublin? Why did you move?
Carl Karrer: I grew up in Dublin but left in 1958 to follow a career as a metallurgical engineer in the steel industry. I returned when I retired in 2000 and stayed until 2012 when my wife’s health was failing. We moved to a retirement community near our son in southwest Ohio.
DL: What did you like about living in Dublin?
CK: I have lived in 10 cities in seven states, but Dublin has always been home.
DL: What activities and/or organizations were you involved in when you lived in Dublin?
CK: During the 1940s and 50s, Dublin’s population was about 400. All activity in Dublin centered around one school, one church and one industry, agriculture. I enjoyed Boy Scouts, 4-H and high school football before attending The Ohio State University. On return after 42 years elsewhere, the town I knew was now the Historic District. I became a board member of the Dublin Historical Society and was involved in starting the digital scanning and archiving of our photo collection. This involves preservation of the pictures of the people, places and things significant to our past in a way that can make them useful on our website. I was also appointed to sit on the City’s Architectural Review Board, which acts to maintain the visual character of the Historic District.
DL: The Karrer name is all over town – Henry Karrer Middle School, Karrer Barn. How are you connected to these Karrers?
CK: My great-grandfather was George Michael Karrer, a blacksmith who came to Dublin from Germany around 1852. He owned the stone house on Riverview Street that had earlier been the Black Horse Tavern. In 1876 he purchased the James Wright property. He relocated his blacksmith shop and built the barn at what is now Waterford Drive. His house is at 167 S. High St., where my cousin Robert Karrer resides. Waterford Village occupies the rest of what was the farm. All of the Karrers who have lived in Dublin and Plain City are his descendants.
DL: What are you up to now?
CK: Catching up with children and grandchildren.
DL: Tell us about the steps for the idea of the town pump sculpture becoming a reality. How are you connected to it?
CK: The conceptual design for the BriHi development at the northwest corner of Bridge and High Streets was under review by the Architectural Review Board in 2007. For several years the Historical Society had been conducting a walking tour of the Historic District for all of the fourth-graders in Dublin City Schools, and the story of the town pump in the middle of the road was always a feature. It was immediately clear that the BriHi corner plaza, which directly overlooks the site of the former well, would be an ideal place to commemorate that part of our history and create a teaching point on the tour. The Historical Society Board concurred and made its photo collection available for a slide show. I presented this to City Council in 2008 as part of a request by the Historical Society to make it a candidate for the City’s Art in Public Places program. The concept was applauded, but it was too soon to commit for a contract. First, the plaza would be a construction site under the control of the developer for several years and not available for a City project. Second, some of the features of our very successful Art in Public Places program were difficult to accomplish for a pre-designated commemorative piece.
This presented an opportunity to explore a different process. I participated in selecting an Ohio artist based on his prior work and set up his initial meeting with the director of the Dublin Arts Council. Soon thereafter, it was necessary that I leave the community, but the work of David Guion, Mike Tizzano, Sara Ott and a very supportive City Council made it possible for Council to approve both a new process and separate funding in 2012 to allow the project to go on.
It has been Mike Tizzano’s talent as a teacher that led to using the Dublin Community Recreation Center as a site for the sculpting and the involvement of adults and children in the process. This has given hundreds of people some ownership in what I think has been an exceptional experience.
DL: How do you feel about this vision coming to life?
CK: I am pleased beyond all expectation. I have already seen children run over to touch the figures and the water. I can see fourth-graders on the tour finding it easier to understand a Dublin without automobiles and running water. I can imagine my dad smiling and remembering the original pump, which he passed every day while walking to school.
DL: What do you hope people think when they see the sculpture?
CK: That Daily Chores can be fun, that the center of the Historic District is a gathering place and that we are proud of our heritage.
Lisa Aurand is editor of Dublin Life Magazine. Feedback welcome at laurand@cityscenemediagroup.com.
