By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
The city of Olive Hill is down one more historic building as Rockstar Tanning, at 159 Railroad Street downtown, was lost in a fire in the early morning hours last Friday. Calls reporting the fire came in just before 1:30 a.m. on Friday morning stating that the top floors of the building were on fire.
The building, reduced to an unstable shell after being completely gutted by the fire, was knocked in on itself by heavy equipment once the blaze was extinguished just before 6:30 a.m.
Firefighters and crews from across the county and communities in neighboring counties responded to help fight the fire, and though they weren’t able to save the Rockstar building, they were able to keep adjacent structures from catching fire or sustaining serious damage.
The building on Railroad Street is one of several that had sat vacant in downtown, but it had been refurbished in recent years and had new life breathed into it by local businesswoman Tonya Judd. In addition to the tanning salon, Judd had previously stated she had plans to provide space for other businesses in the building as improvements continued.
The building next door, which has also recently been undergoing extensive renovation, reportedly suffered from smoke but no significant structural damage. Tyler’s Pizza, which sits next to the building on the Cross Street side, was also undamaged and reopened on Saturday morning. It did not open on Friday, as Cross Street and Railroad Street were closed to through traffic as crews worked to clean up the rubble from the building’s collapse.
On social media many area residents lamented the loss of the building on the corner, and shared fond memories of boutiques and other shops at the location, most of which were in business prior to the decade old flood which caused many businesses downtown to shut their doors for good.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation and has not been reported at press time.
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com
