The Racing Hall of Fame caught fire in late December, threatening an irreplacable collection of race records and memorabilia that chronicles Aiken's long love affair with thoroughbred horses. All of those things - many related to racing champions, their owners, trainers and jockeys at the landmark at Hopeland Gardens - were salvaged from the blaze that ripped through the building's attic.
Most of the items are one of a kind - some 200 years old - but that didn't stop firefighters from pumping in enough water to flood the place.
City officials estimate that it will take more than $20,000 to repair the building, a remodeled carriage house on 14 tree-filled acres willed to Aiken as a public park. Most of that money will pay for another ceiling. A new one had just been installed before the blaze as part of a three-month restoration project for a January reopening that never happened.
Fire damage was minimal - charred timbers and a hole in the second-floor ceiling, where a wire in track lighting apparently over-heated.
The hall first opened in 1977. In all, 40 Aiken horses are memorialized there.
People used to laugh when the late Joan Tower said it was her dream to open a building to honor Aiken's greatest racehorses. She did it, and in the years since it has become one of the city's most popoular tourist attractions.
But when the shrine finally reopens, Mrs. Tower won't be there. One of the town's most vived figures and a driving force behind preserving ints landmards died last February after a long illness. She was 72.
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