Braaten Concrete and Masonry recently demolished the former Viking Water building, also known as the Wittwer building, to make room for a new storage facility.  The demolition of the building, which is located just east of the DNR building on North Lakeshore Drive, took about three work days.

The building, gone now, was owned by LeRoy Wittwer of Glenwood and the Wittwer family operated a dairy farm in that area and the building was a creamery.  The Wittwer family milked a dairy herd east of the building and delivered milk to the community.  LeRoy was born in 1923 and died in 2011, according to information at the Pope County Museum.  

Although it was the Wittwer building, it was leased by others starting with Clyde Machines, which started their successful operation there.   Through the years the building was also leased for a water bottling business.  Bob Picha and Stan Barsness operated a water company.

Picha had a great idea and proposed to can water for the U.S. Military.  The problem is that the military wanted the single-serving cans to float so the cans contained water with a little air before they were sealed.  That turned out to be the downfall.  The cans rusted and the government refused the contract.  (There is a sample of one of the cans of water at the Pope County Museum.) Picha went broke.

Don Ostrander and George Phelps took over the water company, but the partnership didn’t work well, according to former Glenwood Mayor and long-time businessman Bill Ogdahl, who then purchased the business and began running Viking Water in 1971.  He operated it until 1988. 

LeRoy Wittwer owned the building the entire time.  

“I remember the bottling room in that building. Whoever laid the concrete floors knew what they were doing,” Ogdahl said recently.  “If you spilled any water on the floor, it went directly to the drain.”