‘Pumpman 1994′ Wins Auction to Blow Up U. of Charleston Building

A date with dynamite: The former Union Carbide headquarters, now owned by the University of Charleston, will be imploded on Saturday. (Photo by Michael Runion)

“Pumpman 1994” — also known as Chris Belcher of Cincinnati — won an auction on eBay to blow up an old Union Carbide building owned by the University of Charleston. He paid $5,207 dollars for the right to push the detonator button that will bring the chemical company’s former headquarters to the ground this Saturday.

It appears, however, that he will give up this glorious opportunity for destruction. According to a local news story, Mr. Belcher, a Charleston alumnus who owns Pinnacle Environmental Consultants, is using his winning ticket as a prize in a raffle to raise money for the University of Charleston baseball team. Mr. Belcher played for Charleston in his college days.

Union Carbide donated the 11-story, 106,000-square-foot building, built in 1948, to the University of Charleston in 2006. On the eBay auction page (which describes the contest as “slightly unusual” on the weirdness scale), the university says that the building is “both historic and quite distinctive” and that it “served as a focal point for the vibrant chemical industry in the Kanawha Valley.”

It would seem to be a bad moment to highlight such significance. Certainly, the contest was met with nostalgia and melancholy by some local residents.

“I think the city of South Charleston will look very strange without this living landmark,” wrote one commenter on a news Web site. “My father and grandfather both worked there for years. … I know the building was old, but the city could’ve found some way to save this historical site.”

A story that ran at the start of the auction said that the university plans to sell the land after the building is destroyed. “We hope that demolition of the building will make the site attractive to a buyer who will bring new economic activity into that area of South Charleston,” said the university’s president, Edwin Welch.