This week Weldon got rid of two buildings the town considers eyesores — the Dickens Hux building by heavy machinery and today the old funeral home by fire.

“The main thing is there’s no better training than a live burn,” town fire Chief Rusty Bolt said.

The burn helped firefighters receive air pack training, two in and two out training and methods to protect power lines and adjacent buildings.

Mayor Julia Meacham watched the burn. “This is what we needed, a cleanup effort to make Weldon a more attractive place for the citizens and the town’s business owners.”

Some 9,000 vehicles travel the Highway 158 and Highway 301 corridor, which the old funeral home fronts, each day, the mayor said.

Earlier this week as she watched the Dickens Hux demolition Meacham said, “To me this shows town citizens this board doesn’t like ... eyesores. It needed to be taken down for years. It was a liability for the town. We’re trying to promote business to come to Weldon. A cleaner look, it’s putting us in positive position economically.”

Former Weldon town commissioner Andy Whitby who was working on a building project of his own close by said the funeral home was most likely built in the early 1900s while the Dickens Hux building was used once as storage for the Garrett Winery.

Whitby said he would have liked to have seen the town bring in engineers to see if both buildings could have been used in the town’s revitalization efforts before being demolished and burned.

As firefighters continued to protect utility lines and surrounding property, Bolt said the only thing that would be left of the building was its foundation. He was pleased with the training the building afforded. “We trained with it. There was no way we would have just let that building burn without training.”