Architectural appreciation

Shakopee resident Jerry Hackett, 85, says that if he had kept all the model buildings and bridges he’s constructed over the past 19 or so years, “There would be no room to walk, and I would be living alone,” he says, joking that his wife Pat would not put up with it.

During July, Hackett presented Waseca County with a model of the county courthouse built on a scale of one-eighth inch equals one foot. Built using toothpicks, basswood sheets and balsa wood, the model is about two feet long on each side; the clock tower is also about two feet tall. Despite its size, it weighs only a few pounds.

Hackett had visited the courthouse roughly six months before and told staff of his interest in building the model. Facility maintenance supervisor Teddy Hoehn had provided him with photocopies of old blueprints; Hackett also took pictures of the exterior of the building. “I always do that,” he said of his models. “It helps to have the details recorded.”

Hackett said he had no wish to be paid. “I pretty much always give them away,” he says. “Building them is fun for me. It’s my way of keeping out of trouble.”

Hackett has already built dozens, if not hundreds, of models, including bridges, iron structures and buildings. He apparently enjoys a challenge: the largest model he’s built to date is of Duluth’s Old Central High School, constructed in 1891. The full-sized building occupies an entire city block. Hackett says his model was roughly 6 feet long and 3 feet wide; a contingent from a Duluth preservation society had to bring an enclosed trailer to pick it up from his home.

Other models he has built over time include the Eiffel Tower, the Space Needle, merry-go-rounds, ferris wheels, three Shakopee churches and quite a few bridges, including some in Europe and the Duluth Lift Bridge. 

Hackett says many of his models have been donated to the Shakopee library. Even there, he says, space was becoming limited, so the Shakopee library began sending them out on loan to other libraries.

Looking for new ideas, Hackett says he went online and found images of all 87 different courthouses located in Minnesota’s 87 counties. He rated each regarding how “unique” it was, and consequently how much fun he would have building it.  In the end, he said, only six truly interested him. Three were located in the southern part of the state: Waseca, Washington and Steele counties.

“Anything built after 1900 just doesn’t seem to have the same character,” he observes.

Hackett says he began his hobby of constructing models almost two decades ago when a neighbor removed a cedar tree and offered him a number of scrap logs about three feet long. Hackett says he cut those into sticks about one-eighth inch on a side, then rounded off the edges to make miniature logs.

“I made a log cabin with them,” he said, saying the cabin was about eight inches high, ten inches wide, and a foot long. He also used the cedar to make a more modern house similar to the farmhouse he grew up in.

When he decided to donate the two miniature structures to a silent auction fundraiser, the coordinators asked what price would be appropriate. Hackett says he recommended $40 for the cabin and $60 for the house. Both were purchased at the marked price.

He went on to use the cedar scraps to build a log cabin for each of his six children and a total of about 20 cabins altogether. He also made six or seven of the model houses, and then the cedar was all used up.

At that point it came to him that, while his children were in school, they had all been assigned to make a structure of toothpicks somewhere during their education.

“So I thought I’d give that a try,” he says lightly.

His first choice was the Eiffel tower. The measurements and many images were readily available online.

For anyone curious how his models can be so precise, he explains he creates a scale drawing of each flat section of wall on graph paper. He sets a sheet of wax paper on top of that, then begins putting a small dab of glue on each toothpick, which he sets in place with a tweezers. “I don’t work all that fast,” he comments. “I have to stop fairly often to let the glue dry.”

When a building section is curved, he draws out the dimensions on a piece of cardboard, then curves it to the correct degree. The technique is then the same as for flat sections: wax paper is laid across the curved drawing and toothpicks are set in place one at a time using tweezers.

Once whole sections are finished, he says he completely coats them in glue.

His glue of choice is Elmer’s “extra strong” variety.

He says he orders the round toothpicks in lots of 12,000, since that quantity will get him free shipping.  For roofs, he uses basswood sheets. For details which need carving, he uses balsa pieces.

Using a nail clippers, he removes the points of each toothpick and is left with a 2-inch piece. He then determines what lengths will be needed and begins pre-cutting them. Frequently, he uses both the longer and shorter “halves” of the toothpicks for different sections of the building.

The very large Old Central School model, he said, took 30,000 toothpicks, plus the basswood and balsa features. The usual range is somewhere between 4,000 and 10,000.

Hackett estimates each model costs him “a couple hundred dollars or so,” and keeps him “out of trouble” for a few weeks to about six months.

He comments he has the most fun on the most ornate sections of the buildings. He enjoys engineering the small bits and pieces on decorative corners or around windows. He mentions he is currently working on a model of the Steele County courthouse, and expects to deliver it sometime in August. That building has an arched inset above the main entry doors where “Lady Justice” stands. He says he is enjoying the puzzle of how he can best represent the statue on his model. He recalls how, when he was building models of churches, he would take photographs of their stained glass windows, print them to scale, and put them in the window frames.

When it is time to assemble all the different sections, he places quarter-inch square basswood sticks inside and glues the walls to the respective sides.

“They’re very sturdy when they’re finished,” he comments.