The night the bucket burned; part 2

In the early morning hours of Father's Day, June 19, 2005, an arsonist went to the historic village of Cannonsburgh in Murfreesboro and set fire to the World's Largest Cedar Bucket. By the time the fire department arrived, most of the bucket was a total loss. The upper half of the bucket was scorched, the roof of its shelter had burned through, and the walls of the next door blacksmith were blackened.

Two days later, I hurried down to see it with my own eyes and was horrified at the scene. The marvelous bucket, which my daughter and I had just visited and photographed a few weeks earlier(for the umpteenth time), was in ruins. Surrounded by crime scene tape, the smell of burnt wood was overwhelming.

As you can see, the bucket wasn't burned completely to ashes, but the damage was done. The guilty party-to my knowledge-has never been found. Local blacksmiths have vowed to rebuild the bucket, but it won't be the same. A local artist has taken some of the charred remains and created a sculpture that now stands in the museum at the village.