Demolition of Higgins Jewelry building underway

After an hour of lifting steel mats into place to protect new sidewalks in front of the Higgins Jewelry building and covering windows of the Du Quoin Insurance Agency building to the west and Blanca's Corner to the east with large blocks of styrofoam, Dennis George of George's Excavating of Du Quoin began pulling apart the front of the building starting at 6 p.m. Tuesday. "It went better than we expected," said firefighter David Durkota, who has been working alongside Chief Bob Shaw to inspect buildings in the city. The building shares a common wall with Blanca's Corner and pulling down a steel beam pulled some bricks out of the corner, but there were no major issues. The Du Quoin Insurance Agency building is actually the last of the original wooden downtown buildings.