GROUP PROPOSES TO MOVE CABIN; CITY'S HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION FAVORS IDEA

If Tom Neumeyer, Mandy McClure and the Cape Girardeau Historic Preservation Commission get their wish, the log cabin that now sits at 127 S. Frederick would be moved to behind City Hall and become part of a plaza of historic structures.

City Councilman Neumeyer and McClure, the owner of the house, addressed the commission Wednesday night at its meeting in City Hall. The commission unanimously endorsed their efforts.

"Our support, but we don't have any money," said Lynette Shirell of the commission.

Neumeyer said a professional house mover told him it would cost $5,000 to $6,000 to move the log cabin, and that citizens would have to raise the money. McClure said she will donate the house.

For years the log cabin was hidden within a 20th-century frame house. It is currently visible from Frederick Street. Someone built the original log structure with tree trunks of varying sizes and species, and installed a floor of mud, straw and narrow strips of wood atop log beams, Neumeyer said.

It now sits on concrete block and brick posts. Neumeyer said that Taylor Glass and Remodeling plans to enclose the log cabin in plywood to preserve it until someone can find it a home.

Neumeyer said he would like to raise it higher so that visitors could inspect its floor without crawling.

He said that Bill Lee, an expert on log homes who lives in Arnold, inspected the house over the weekend and called it "a jewel." He dated it from the late 1820s or 1830s.

McClure, who lives near Atlanta, inherited the house when her grandmother Julie Masters died four years ago.

"All communities have a beginning, a people, a vision, a dream," McClure told the commission. "This log cabin, this diamond in the rough, is a precious and priceless part of that beginning."

No formal group is working to save the home, only an ad hoc group of citizens, Neumeyer said. McClure is paying for the demolition of the newer house around the log cabin.

Neumeyer said he plans to approach public and parochial elementary schools to see whether the children would like to help preserve the cabin.

Frank Nickell, director of the Center for Regional History at Southeast Missouri State University, is part of the ad hoc group as well, Neumeyer said. Nickell said that since an article about the log cabin appeared in the Southeast Missourian last week, two landowners have approached him about donating log cabins for preservation -- one near Fruitland and one near Perryville.

Neumeyer said he hoped to move those into the same park as the one on Frederick.

The city condemned the house in 1994, shortly after Masters' death. After workers discovered the log cabin underneath, city officials put the demolition on hold and the city began working with historical-preservation societies to find a way to move the cabin and preserve it.

Nickell said there are probably other log cabins hidden inside more modern structures around the oldest parts of the city. He said most would have thick walls, odd-sized windows, with the windows on either side of the front door being different distances from the door.