The vacant Central California Citrus Exchange building in Lindsay appears headed for the wrecking ball, but crusading attorney Richard Harriman is trying to save it as a historical structure.

But time is running short.

Dollar General Store is buying the property to build a 9,100-square-foot store, so the small but charming building is slated for destruction.

Harriman raised legal objections last week, causing the Lindsay City Council to put off likely approval, but the matter will be back March 12.

With its red tile roof and arched entryway, the 1934 building has a Spanish look.

"It reeks of the old economy and well-being the community once had and was proud of," said Trudy Wischemann of Lindsay. "It's a classic building."

It is not, however, a historic building, said city planning director Bill Zigler.

The citrus industry played a large role in the city's history, but the exchange did not play a key role in California's history and "there's nothing to show it was historic by state standards," he said.

But Harriman, a former Lindsay resident, said he believes the city failed to do a proper historical analysis.

Zigler also said the building has plumbing and electrical problems and is not ADA-compliant.

Representatives of the Central California Citrus Exchange, a group of three or four packinghouses that no longer use the building, could not be reached for comment.

City Council Member Pam Kimball, chairwoman of the Cultural Arts Council, said she looked for a white knight to no avail: "The reality is, it would take someone with a lot of money and there's no one out there."

Harriman said he is contemplating his next move and will be at the March 12 meeting.

POSTER BOY: Gary Brown of Visalia collects vintage movie posters of Hollywood westerns and has a few on display at Mavericks Coffee on Caldwell Avenue.

Two years ago, a production assistant from the movie "Bless Me, Ultima," based on a novel by Rudolfo Anaya about a Chicano family in rural New Mexico in 1944, called Mavericks.

The movie makers searched the Internet and learned that Mavericks had an original 1944 poster of the movie "The Cowboy and the Senorita," with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

They asked to rent the poster to use in their movie, so for a small fee Brown sent it off.

He said he recently saw the movie and looked for his poster.

"I can now verify it was used in the film in a couple of scenes in front of a small town movie theater," Brown said. "In our small way, we were able to help a legitimate film production company, thanks to modern technology."