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HOLLIDAYSBURG -- Demolition permits are set to be finalized in January for the dilapidated mill alleged to be the base of a feral cat colony, according to the owner of the building.
The structure sits at the corner of Montgomery and South Juniata streets, on the property of Hines Feed Store.
Jim Hines, son of owner Janet Hines, said Friday that he has a meeting with the Hollidaysburg Architectural Review Board on Jan. 3 to finalize his permits to have the old mill demolished.
During the past few years, people have reported seeing about a dozen feral cats at a time there. Four years ago, it was reported that there could be up to 50 cats comprising a colony.
The feral cat issue came up again Thursday during a borough council meeting.
Forty people, led by Linda and Don Straub, attended the meeting to work out a plan with the borough to trap, neuter and release any cats that could be caught.
No one at the meeting directly referred to the Hines' mill structure, but alluded to it as a location where cats congregate and spread feline leukemia. The council promised to organize a meeting with the concerned citizens in January.
Hines was not at the meeting, as his family's communication with the trap-and-neuter volunteers has been strained through the years.
However, on Friday, he said the process for demolishing the building was started weeks ago.
As Hines walked to the mill Friday afternoon to give a reporter a tour, a black cat with a white belly and paws jumped out from an opening under the barn.
"That's Tux," Hines said, adding that he's been "fixed."
None of the cats that ever lived in or visited the mill ever belonged to the family. He said a cat or two has been seen around the mill since the 1940s.
Tux appeared one day about five years ago, he said, and he fed him. A litter of kittens, apparently belonging to Tux, subsequently appeared sitting outside the building. That's where the problem started, Hines said.
Someone saw the kittens and started dumping food, he said. Believing there was a cache hungry cats in the locked-up building, people began pulling boards off of it in order to deliver food -- which attracted cats that otherwise would not have been there, he said.
Empty cat food cans litter the floor of the mill. On Friday, Hines opened the door to the mill for the first time in a month.
There was one brown cat inside the mill that sprung up and skittered away. No other cats could be seen.
Hines said he welcomed the Central Pennsylvania Humane Society about four years ago to trap and neuter all cats at the barn.
"We cleared up everything there," Central Pennsylvania Humane Society Manager Theresa Shirley said Friday.
"We spayed and neutered them," Shirley said.
However, the feral feline population was replenished, she suspects, by irresponsible cat owners who knew the barn would be a safe place to dump their cats.
"People know there are dumping grounds in their communities where they can get away with ditching their animals, so they dump them off," she said.
Shirley said that the publicity of the barn, also known as the mill, may have led to more people dumping their cats there since the Humane Society's last visit.
It only takes a couple of cats for the population to grow rapidly.
"One cat can can drop a litter every 60 days," she said. "And they can fall pregnant while nursing."
Hines said the cats will leave as soon as a demolition crew shows up. He did not have a set date for demolition.
The inside of the building is rotted and unsafe, which is why it must be torn down, he said.
However, he said when the time comes, he would be open to allowing people to set traps for the cats outside of the building.
"I'd like to see them have a good home, and not live on the streets," he said.
Mirror Staff Writer Russ O'Reilly is at 946-7435.