LEWISTOWN, Ill. — In what's shaping up to be the most sizzling summer in decades, Erik Woll revels in extreme heat.
By trade, the 28-year-old is a chef at The Herbst Landing in Canton. By hobby, he's a blacksmith.
"I don't know what it is about me and hot careers," he says cheerfully. "I must have a penchant for self-loathing."
Not to mention a spouse who is curator at the Rasmussen Museum and Blacksmith Shop, an eclectic collection of local artifacts and tributes to a vanished way of life.
Opened by Danish immigrant Nels Rasmussen in 1893, the shop was operated by his son Don Rasmussen until 1969. Almost 120 years latter, smithing is a rare occupation. Thanks to the Lewistown Society for Historical Preservation - founded by Erik Woll's great-grandfather - the Rasmussen shop remains on the same site, looks much as it did for 80 years and retains many original tools and architectural highlights.
"This is one of the last, original, fully-functioning blacksmith shops," says Ashton Woll. "It's very rare someone can come and see blacksmiths working where blacksmiths have worked for 100 years."
The 24-year-old was a history major at Knox College in Galesburg. She's thrilled to have a hands-on place to ply her own trade - so much so that she lobbied to have live blacksmithing demonstrations once a month through the summer, as well as a regular feature during Spoon River Drive.
At last month's demonstration, a small - but avid - niche group gathers around the blazing forge.
"Why aren't you using a heavier hammer?" one of the spectators asks Erik Woll.
"Because it wears your arm out faster," he replies.
The group laughs. Many of them worked in similar occupations. They know the toll of repetition in this trade. Eighty-two-year-old Lloyd Jenkel of East Peoria, for example, had been a machinist at Caterpillar Tractor Co. While scouting the implements on display, he looks over a list of 46 kinds of horseshoes.
"A farrier, that's an art of its own," Jenkel says.
Kathy and Gary Knapp drove over from Peoria. He has his own small forge for metal-working.
"I knew he would enjoy it," 64-year-old Kathy says. "He has an anvil."
She should know. She bought it for him. Kathy Knapp gift-wrapped the 38-pound chunk of metal on the porch where it was delivered rather than lugging it inside, more or less saying she had to draw the line somewhere.
In what's shaping up to be the most sizzling summer in decades, Erik Woll revels in extreme heat.
By trade, the 28-year-old is a chef at The Herbst Landing in Canton. By hobby, he's a blacksmith.
"I don't know what it is about me and hot careers," he says cheerfully. "I must have a penchant for self-loathing."
Not to mention a spouse who is curator at the Rasmussen Museum and Blacksmith Shop, an eclectic collection of local artifacts and tributes to a vanished way of life.
Opened by Danish immigrant Nels Rasmussen in 1893, the shop was operated by his son Don Rasmussen until 1969. Almost 120 years latter, smithing is a rare occupation. Thanks to the Lewistown Society for Historical Preservation - founded by Erik Woll's great-grandfather - the Rasmussen shop remains on the same site, looks much as it did for 80 years and retains many original tools and architectural highlights.
"This is one of the last, original, fully-functioning blacksmith shops," says Ashton Woll. "It's very rare someone can come and see blacksmiths working where blacksmiths have worked for 100 years."
The 24-year-old was a history major at Knox College in Galesburg. She's thrilled to have a hands-on place to ply her own trade - so much so that she lobbied to have live blacksmithing demonstrations once a month through the summer, as well as a regular feature during Spoon River Drive.
At last month's demonstration, a small - but avid - niche group gathers around the blazing forge.
"Why aren't you using a heavier hammer?" one of the spectators asks Erik Woll.
"Because it wears your arm out faster," he replies.
The group laughs. Many of them worked in similar occupations. They know the toll of repetition in this trade. Eighty-two-year-old Lloyd Jenkel of East Peoria, for example, had been a machinist at Caterpillar Tractor Co. While scouting the implements on display, he looks over a list of 46 kinds of horseshoes.
"A farrier, that's an art of its own," Jenkel says.
Kathy and Gary Knapp drove over from Peoria. He has his own small forge for metal-working.
"I knew he would enjoy it," 64-year-old Kathy says. "He has an anvil."
She should know. She bought it for him. Kathy Knapp gift-wrapped the 38-pound chunk of metal on the porch where it was delivered rather than lugging it inside, more or less saying she had to draw the line somewhere.
Thirty-three-year-old Samuel Badgley of Bellevue offers to help Erik Woll demonstrate, using a chisel to steady a glowing bar of metal as Woll splits it. Badgely is learning some of these skills from his father, who is a member of the Illinois Valley Blacksmith Association.
"Blacksmithing is a dying career," says Badgely, who currently works for G&D Integrated. "I'm doing it as a hobby."
And Rasmussen is the hottest place those two things meet.