Tuesday morning, construction workers poured the foundation for the new Cressmans building.
For more than 115 years, the business and gas station served as a pit stop, refueling generation after generation.
"The coolest thing is people remember it from when they were tiny little kids. So people my age, people in their 70s and 80s that remember it and you can tell how much they love it," said Ty Gillett, Cressman's General Store owner.
Until it was ravaged by the Creek Fire in September 2020.
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Nine months after the fire, a temporary store was opened in a shipping container. "Temporary" has stretched more than four years.
Despite setbacks, owner Ty Gillett said the dream to rebuild goes beyond his family.
"That gets us back to all the stuff we really want to be doing," said Gillett. "Our bakery, our barbecue, our pizzas, our deli and all that stuff that really provides a place to hang out and a hub for the community. Yhat's what we're missing right now, really."
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The plan is for the front of the building to be as similar as possible to the original.
The rebuild is serving as a visible reminder of how the Creek Fire forever changed the landscape of the mountain community.
"It definitely won't be the way it used to be. Nothing around here is going to be quite the way it used to be," said Gillett. "But people are rebuilding houses all over the place, and it's getting a little better every day."
With memories built right into the foundation.
"There was a horseshoe in the old building that had the original builder's name, Ammond Cressman, his initials next to it and it was in the fireplace of the old house and we managed to find it in the rubble, dug it out of the concrete and we've got it right inside the front door now in the new slab," said Gillett. "That will be the first thing people see when they walk in the front door."
The goal is to be rebuilt and reopened by next summer, and at that point, they'll be looking to hire 10 more people onto their staff.
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