A newly added last paragraph updates the July 29 posting of this story

The development of the 10 home Maple Field subdivision began Wednesday, July 28, with knocking down – demolishing – the backstop, dugouts, fencing and storage shed of the Maple Avenue ballpark. Shortly after 1 p.m. excavator construction equipment and a truck carrying a 40 yard dumpster pulled into the property. By the end of the afternoon, the eastside fence and structures were pulled down and the debris hauled away.

La Conner little leaguers played on the field this spring. Today, all evidence is being hauled away. The Hedlin’s Family Farm sign stays, but the property they sold to the Town of La Conner is about to be totally transformed. Lautenbach Recycling was hired to strip the field clean. The piles of steel fencing will be recycled. The excavator operator pulled down all poles. The open jaws of the machine was not to be denied.

The equipment shed was the last structure to go. First the roof was lifted off, then the walls. All was stuffed into the dumpster.

The bases left behind, in the equipment shed went to the dumpster. The bases in the field remain for the moment. Souvenir anyone? Around 3 p.m. only the Kiwanis plaque recognizing their gift to the baseball playing kids of La Conner was left behind. The shed and other improvements they funded were hauled away, as by Mr. Peabody’s coal train.

Lautenbach Recycling staff were back early Thursday, removing and rolling up the chain link fence along Maple Avenue that had been festively adorned with mementos, icons and symbolic hearts and a R.I.P. By 10:30 a.m. all evidence, except for second base, had been removed. The field next to Hedlin’s Family Farm is empty now. A 24,000 square foot town park will occupy the north corner, near this sign. Ten homes will be built as Landed Gentry’s Maple Fields subdivision.