Getting Started.

Jess standing as a reference in front of the Peter Stuhr House.

This is going to take a while. I am talking about getting this house ready to be open.  I had driven by this house almost all of my life. I knew it was there, over by the meat packing plant, but didn't think much of it.  Later, when I began working at Stuhr Museum and became more and more immersed in the history of the museum's beginnings, I learned it was one of the original settlement cabins, and I knew that the museum was once supposed to be built near this house and that it would be a part of the museum, but with all the work here at the museum and in Railroad Town, I still wasn't thinking much about the house. Until the phone call came. One rather cool late winter day in March of 2010, Jess Waite in the Research Department called to say that the J. B. Swift meat packing plant wanted to move the house out of the way in order to make a parking lot. Could we come over and take a look at the house?  These opportunities are not lining up every day, so of course we headed over - with my camera - to take a look at the house.  At the time, I did not believe - though I greatly hoped - that the house would ever make it to the museum. Its significance to Hall County History is undeniable, but there are rules about accepting new structures at the museum, and they are very good rules that help us be responsible caretakers of the artifacts - buildings included - that we care for. I had my camera, and I might never get in the house again, so I was going to take as many pictures as I could.

We met the Swift representative at the house and and went inside to start our tour.  They had heard that it might be a really old house and wanted confirmation. We headed down to the basement area first. One look at the structural support beams confirmed what I already knew - this house was a very old structure.  We snapped several images of the basement beams and underfloor then moved upstairs to the main level.  It was a very simple layout. Front living room and bedroom, closet under the stairs, a large kitchen, back bedroom, bathroom and a side area with a small closet and access to the outside and the basement.  The whole things looked like it had been decorated in the 1970s. The front bedroom and living room had exposed beams and you could see the underside of the floor of the attic area - it was all open.  The kitchen and back bedroom had finished drywall ceilings.  We next moved through a hidden door behind the bookcase in the living room to access the attic area.  This is where we got the really great surprises. The upper area had been sectioned off to two rooms over the front part of the house. there was a wall and door of vertical boards just to the right as we climbed the stairs. The hinges on the door were 19th century, as was a hook located on the wall. The rest of the front was open. We could see the brick chimney that was accessible from the front bedroom area. As we looked around this area, we could see the framing for the second chimney that had once been located in the living room area.  We were just a little excited. Ok, perhaps I was a little more excited. As we turned to the back area of the house we saw where the two cabins had been joined together. The sloped roof was still there - with shingles! There was a door to another room that was the area over the kitchen and back bedroom. In the door area we saw the vertical boards that came up from below and pieces of adobe brick that were reportedly lining the inside of the walls below.  These were described as construction aspects of the original settler's cabins in Heinrich Egge's Diary. Again, very excited!!

After touring the house we moved outside and took pictures of the exterior and the barn that was also located nearby and was to be moved. Since were were taking documentation pictures, we grabbed some of the barn as well.  As Jess and I drove back to the museum we discussed the possibilities for use of the building should it come onto our grounds, but we were aware that this might be a very remote possibility. As it turned out, it did not come to the museum at that time, it was instead given into the care of the Hall County Historical Society and was soon moved over to a City of Grand Island lot for safe keeping while its fate was being decided.  I avoided driving down the road the house had sat on for well over a year. I just could not look at the spot knowing that the house was gone. I did not want to think about the house.

Time moves forward and sometimes things just happen.  In the fall of 2012 a number of things fell into place and the Peter Stuhr house would be moving to the grounds of the Stuhr Museum after all. In December of 2012, with its new foundation sited across the street from the birthplace of Henry Fonda in Railroad Town, the Peter Stuhr House came onto the grounds. Within about three days the house was safely set on the foundation.  The time had come to start thinking about the house.

In the late winter - early spring of 2013, parts of the foundation were finished enough to allow a set of stairs to be placed up to the front door. In April of that year, the museum hosted an open house with the house in its raw untouched state.  Plans of how the house would be used once it was restored were made and exhibited that day, and posters citing a list of needs for each room were placed about for visitors to see. The only things that had been removed from the house were a harvest gold kitchen stove and a very large wood burning fireplace from the living room. The modern kitchen set up, bathroom and carpeting remained. This was an opportunity to show that there was a good deal of work ahead.  Floor plans would be made and work would proceed as time, help and funding allowed.

In the late fall of 2013 exterior vinyl siding was removed on two sides of the house exposing the wood siding underneath.  So far, so good. It did not look terrible, but there were obvious areas needing repair and replacement.  No work had yet been done inside.  In the winter months of 2014, I asked if it would be ok to start taking out some of the cupboards in the kitchen and was given permission. It was a cold winter, so work days were limited, but work began as time allowed.  But I am getting ahead of myself here now. This is what this blog will be about - the process of taking this raw, modernized house and restoring it to a 19th century version of itself. So far we - my daughter, Laura, has been very excited about helping with some of the demolition - have spent about six or seven days in February, two or three in March and a couple in April working to remove the modern, and for the most part this is all done.  We have moved carefully. This is demolition archeology. We have to take the layers back slowly and document often so we don't miss any clues. But I will be writing about this over the course of the summer of 2014. I will take various aspects of the demolition that is now done and write about what we found or experienced. And there will be pictures. Lots of pictures.

I hope you will enjoy traveling with me as we move through this process. It is more that just taking out the new, painting the walls, moving in a few artifacts and opening the doors. There will be so much more than just that. Once completed the house will be used to help the museum meet its mission, and by taking you through the process of restoring and later interpreting this site, we hope to show you just what it will take to make this possible.