Posts tagged ‘Pioneer Mothers Memorial Cabin’

Jun 26

Historic Cabin Brought Back to Life

ODAR members serve refreshments at the ribbon cutting ceremony.

The Arciform team was thrilled to celebrate the completed reconstruction of the Pioneer Mothers Cabin with a formal ribbon cutting ceremony Sunday March 17th. The event marked the end of years of planning, fundraising and worry for the members of the ODAR (Oregon Daughters of the American Revolution) after watching their historic monument slowly slip into the Willamette River. Now relocated to higher ground at the Newell House Museum, the cabin is once again open and ready to educate and entertain!

The Pioneer Mothers Memorial Cabin finally completed at it’s new location.

Although the building now stands proud with a structurally sound chimney and wall bracing, as well new radiant floor heat for comfort, this final celebration was many years coming. Arciform was fist contacted in the fall of 2013, but thoughts of moving the structure had been floating around for over 15 years. Listing it on Restore Oregon’s 2013 Endangered Places brought much needed attention to the cause and when aided by grants and the tremendous efforts and generosity of volunteers and subcontractors, funding for the project was finally made possible.

Arciform team members prepare to reinstall one of the larger logs at the new site.

With all the architectural elements and individual logs cataloged and identified on a set of plans, the cabin was finally ready to be carefully dismantled piece by piece and stored at it’s new home at the Newell House Museum. A fresh concrete slab was poured over a network of tubes for hydronic radiant floor heat and a new reinforced cinder block chimney with firebox to meet modern safety codes was installed. After another bout of fundraising, every piece from window jamb and rafter to the forty foot logs spanning nearly the entire width of the cabin were reinstalled.

Halfway through the deconstruction process, small white tabs indicate each log’s proper location.

Although the building’s original location perched on the edge of the Willamette River will most certainly be missed for it’s historical value and aesthetics, the ODAR members are thrilled to have this piece of history out of harms way for upcoming generations to enjoy. For more information and photographs of the construction process, check out the Pioneer Mothers Memorial Cabin’s Facebook page. If you have a historic building in need of relocation or simply repair please visit our website or Versatile Wood Products for all your historically accurate window, door, millwork and cabinetry needs.

DAR old

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Mar 21

Saving a Piece of the Oregon Trail

There’s a great blog post today on Preservation Nation on the efforts to preserve the “Pioneer Mother’s Memorial Cabin,” a historic remnant of the Oregon Trail that is in danger of literally being washed into the Willamette.

This piece of history is in imminent danger of falling into the Willamette river and being lost forever.

Arciform is working with the Robert Newell House Museum to create an extensive project plan and arrange for the cabin’s deconstruction and reconstruction of the structure in a safer location.

Why worry about an old building on the verge of falling into the river? The post explains:

“There are very few log cabins left, as you can well imagine, and even though this one isn’t an original log cabin from the 1840s and ’50s, it represents that structure,” says Judy Van Atta, director of the Pioneer Mothers Memorial Cabin and the nearby Robert Newell House. “Everything within the cabin is an artifact that came across [the country] on the Oregon Trail, so it represents our beginnings here in Oregon and for the nation, the westward movement.”

The cabin was dedicated in 1931 and sits on a piece of land originally claimed by Robert Newell, the first man brave (or crazy) enough to bring a wagon overland into the Willamette Valley and a pioneer of the Oregon Trail in the 1840s. Today, the site serves as an educational experience for thousands of school children each year to learn about the Oregon Trail, Oregon government, and other elements of the state’s history. Read more here.

As a teaching tool, a historic structure like this can literally “ground” kids in their native soil, illuminating the hardships and opportunities that brought settlers to the state and the way those challenges continue to impact how the state functions today.

To save the building, the Robert Newell House Museum will need to deconstruct it log by log in order to extricate it from the property without disturbing the soil and trees of the protected park land it sits upon.

The “un-building” process should itself provide an extraordinary opportunity to learn and teach about the historic building techniques that helped form the architectural history of Oregon.

Read all about the Memorial Cabin (and how it impacts the lives of Oregon’s kids) here.

We are excited to participate in such an important preservation project.

You can help! Contribute to the costs of saving the Pioneer Mothers Memorial Cabin here.

Photos used in this post were by Ronald Peterson.

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