BENEFIT TO HELP OLIVER HOUSE SET

JACKSON -- Members of the Jackson Heritage Association hope a fund-raiser in October will help pay for upkeep of the historic Oliver House.

A Cruise Party is planned for Oct. 3, and the grand prize will be a $3,000 gift certificate to a Cape Girardeau travel agency and $1,000 spending money.

Trish Wischmann, a board member of the Heritage Association, said the fund-raiser is the last hope that the Oliver House will be able to stay open and be well maintained. The past few years, revenues have been down drastically, she said, and repairs have been costly.

The Oliver House, at 224 East Adams, dates back to the early 1800s. Wischmann said the organization believes that in 1840 there was some type of log home on the property.

In 1855, it was purchased by a man named Furguson, who owned a mercantile store in uptown Jackson.

"The Furguson family did very innovative things with the house," Wischmann said. "They had the first telephone line in Jackson, from the house to their store in uptown Jackson. Later they had the first long-distance line in the state that went from Jackson to Cape Girardeau. That was in 1877."

In 1881, Robert Burret and Marie Watkins Oliver bought the house. Oliver was an attorney in Jackson and later a prosecuting attorney. The couple married in 1979 and five of their six children were born in the house.

In 1882, Oliver was elected to the Missouri Senate, and the family lived in the house for 15 years. In 1886, the family moved to what is now known as the Oliver-Lemming House in Cape Girardeau.

The Oliver house was then owned by a Crites family, and the Bartell family purchased it in 1930. It was later made into an apartment house.

"By the 1960s it was in a sad state of affairs," Wischmann said. "It was purchased by the Jackson Chamber of Commerce in 1966."

The Jackson Community Betterment Association tried to improve the home, but it was later taken over by the Jackson Heritage Association.

"It was on the verge of being condemned in that 10-year time," she said.

Major renovations followed, and the Heritage Association documented all of them.

Now the association is having trouble with the upkeep of the house. Tours and membership dues do not raise enough money each year to finance its upkeep.

About $1,000 comes in each year from tours and $1,500 from dues. Wischmann said it takes $4,000 to $5,000 per year to run the house.

"It's been nip-and-tuck for about five years," she said. "I'd say the heyday for house tours was in 1987 and 1988, but since that time there is so much competition and so many other sites to see in the area. People say there is nothing to do in Cape County, but there are over 25 attractions in the county alone.

"What really hurts is that Jackson has kind of fallen asleep to the fact that we have only one house (the Oliver House) that is on the National Historic Register, and that this house is a piece of living history."

Wischmann said last year only 550 people toured the home; just 100 of them were Jackson residents.

The Heritage Association is trying to get more young people interested in preserving the home, she said. The organization, started 16 years ago, is made up of mostly senior citizens.

"We really need some younger volunteers," she said. "It's a community project."

The Cruise Party includes a night of dinner and dancing at the Jackson KC Hall. Door prizes will be given away hourly.

Tickets are $75 per couple and are available at Gulliver's Travels in Cape Girardeau and in Jackson at Boatmen's Bank, the Fishboat restaurant, Cracraft-Miller Funeral Home and the Chamber of Commerce.