Team tackles prairie puzzle

BEATRICE, Neb. — Log walls that have weathered wind, rain and snow since the first months of Nebraska statehood tell stories.

Bent and crooked timbers. Square sides smoothed with scalloped cuts from a broad axe. Ends V-notched with a single bit axe. Log edges charred black by flames. A whitewashed interior.

Historic preservationists are assembling a log-by-log history of an 1867 log cabin as they repair, relocate and rebuild it at Homestead National Monument of America.

“It’s a very rustic cabin,’’ said Brown Truslow, a Maryland-based National Park Service exhibits specialist leading a project crew of five men.

“I can’t imagine they went very far to find a straight log. They used logs that were close by, and they had limited tools. They did a fine job.’’

The structure — known as the Palmer-Epard Cabin — has been a featured exhibit at the monument since 1950, depicting pioneer life in the 1880s. But it was tucked behind the old visitor center and surrounded by a manicured lawn.

Mark Engler, park superintendent, said many visitors assume that the cabin was owned by Daniel Freeman, the settler whose 1863 claim was one of the first documented homesteads in the nation. The monument includes the original Freeman land and commemorates the Homestead Act of 1862.

“We wanted to reduce confusion as to whose cabin it was and move it to a more natural prairie setting,’’ Engler said.

Truslow’s crew disassembled the cabin last week and moved the pieces to the edge of a restored tallgrass prairie near the new Heritage Center. They tagged about 50 notched logs and dozens of smaller pieces with brass plates identifying each timber’s place in the structure.

Homesteader George W. Palmer built the cabin on Bear Creek northeast of Beatrice. He listed the 14-by-16-foot home in documents he filed in the 1870s to receive ownership of the land.

The cabin logs come from a variety of hardwood trees that historians believe Palmer cut on his land.

White oak, red oak, hackberry, ash, locust, walnut and elm wood have been identified among the logs. The largest are 16 inches tall and 12 or 16 feet long. Each is about five inches thick.

Palmer and his wife raised 10 children in the cabin, and in a 10-by-12-foot lean-to added to the rear by 1880.

The Palmers sold their farm to nephews Eugene Mumford and William Foreman in 1895. A few years later, the farm was sold to Lawrence and Ida Mumford Epard. The Epards lived in the cabin for nearly 40 years.

The cabin gives a significant glimpse of life on the homestead frontier in the years after the Civil War, said Bob Puschendorf of the Nebraska State Historical Society.

Truslow and his crew from the Park Service’s Historic Preservation Training Center in Frederick, Md., are repairing and replacing rotten logs this week. They plan to begin rebuilding the cabin next week and finish the work late this month or in early October.

Betty Replogle of Beatrice said the Epard family is pleased with the project. Replogle’s husband, Greg Replogle, is a grandson of J.B. Epard, who donated the cabin to the Park Service.

“Moving the cabin to a natural setting is a wonderful idea,’’ Betty Replogle said. “It’s a tribute to all homesteaders.’’

Contact the writer:

444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com