http://ozarkspub.vo.llnwd.net/o37/KSMU/audio/mp3/1800scabin_6920.mp3
Life in the Ozarks has changed considerably since the 1800's, but that doesn't mean you can't experience the past. KSMU's Chasity Mayes has more.
It's one of the few surviving structures to make it through a devastating tornado that hit the Ozarks in 1880.
But that's not the only thing the Callaway Cabin has made it through.
“[We] took the building apart one log at a time.”
That's Dan Beckner. He's responsible for some of the negotiating that took place before the cabin was donated to Marshfield’s Hidden Waters Nature Park. He says moving the cabin from its original location was a process.
“We did have a professional who numbered the logs and had a system of numbering them so that we got them all back in the same place and we moved them one at a time and hauled them to Marshfield and stored them for a little while until we got the foundation finished and ready then to start putting them back,” says Beckner.
Although it’s newly-restored, over the past 157 years the cabin has played witness to war, the Great Depression, and the many memories of the Callaway family. Even now, the structure stands as a piece of American and Ozarks history.
Parham and Nancy Callaway built the 16 by 18 foot cabin in 1853. Before the cabin was moved and restored it was about four miles east of Marshfield. Since it was built, many members of the Callaway family have called it home even through a portion of the 20th century.
Garland Callaway is the great-grandson of the cabin’s builders. He says his great-grandparents raised 13 children in the tiny space, but the Civil War left his great–grandmother with her hands full.
“They farmed of course. The Civil War broke out of course in 1861. He went off to war and come home sick and died at 41, which left great-grandmother there with a 520 acre farm to run and her and some small children, because there was 13 of them. So some of them was bound to been pretty small, but anyway it was a matter of survival,” says Callaway.
The last descendent to own the cabin was Dr. Guy W. Callaway, a founder of the Smith-Glynn-Callaway Clinic in Springfield.
Plans for restoring the cabin began in 2007. Three years later, the cabin has been rebuilt and will provide a point of interest for people visiting Hidden Waters Nature Park. Both Callaway and Beckner hope that visitors can use the cabin to get a sense of how their own ancestors survived in the 1800’s.
A dedication ceremony will take place at 2 p.m., Sunday, July 4, at the Nature Park.
For More information, visit our website: KSMU.org.
For KSMU News, I'm Chasity Mayes.