Fayetteville

leaders are scrambling to put together a plan to

save the historic Dorsey home place from the

wrecking ball, but time is running out.

The

house, once occupied by a wounded Civil War

veteran and later the subject of work by famed

architect Neel Reid, is in the way of planned

construction of a new Fayette County jail and

courthouse complex.

County

historian Carolyn Cary has recommended that the

house be preserved if possible, and so has Janet

Mack, president of the Fayette County Historical

Society. But the Historical Society doesn't have

funds to save the house.

Fayetteville

city manager Mike Bryant said this week the

city's Main Street program is working to come up

with a plan to move the house to the old City

Hall site, next to the city's historic train

depot, but the city doesn't really have the funds

either.

"We've

got the Hollingsworth House and the

Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House in various phases of

construction or reconstruction," he said,

"and we don't have the resources to do

another one."

But

city leaders are working with the state

Department of Community Affairs to see if any

grant funds might be available, and are hoping to

come up with a plan that involves public-private

partnership.

"We

would invite anybody who is interested in

preserving the house and restoring it for some

use to give us a call and we'll sit down and talk

to them," Bryant said.

The

city's phone number is 770-461-6029.

One

idea, he said, is to use the depot are to develop

a historic village. "But we would have to

have uses for the houses," he said.

"We're working on that."

Meanwhile,

the County Commission last Thursday voted to give

the city 30 days to come up with a plan that

would persuade them not to demolish the house

along with three others on Long Avenue.

Construction

is not imminent, but the county can't wait long,

said Commissioner Greg Dunn. "We can't let

it sit there another year," he said.

"We have to move forward."

The

house is the former home of John Manson Dorsey,

son of one of the former owners of the

Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House.

John

Dorsey served as a private in the Fayette County

Rifles, 107 local men who joined the Civil War

from Fayette. He was wounded at Gettysburg.

During

the early 1900s, famed architect Neil Reed

performed some redesign work on the house, adding

to its historical value.

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