Iowa City, IA - Trading Post Cabin Restoration
City Channel 4 - Iowa City: “Restoring Historic Cabins”
During the years of 2017-2018, we were given the privilege of restoring the beautiful Iowa City Park historic cabins.
Above is a photo of one of those cabins after we finished the restoration process. This dog-trot design was built in the early 1900's as a replica of an original trading post in the area. The shop owner would live in one half and operate a store out of the other.
An Iowa City Park cabin--pre-restoration.
An Iowa City Park cabin--pre-restoration.
The Iowa City trading post cabin--restored.
Two window sashes--one pre-cleaning and one post-cleaning.
Window sashes--cleaned, repaired, and painted with their original color.
Windows--bright, restored and ready to bring in light.
This is what more than a hundred years of weathering looks like on a walnut windowsill.
A walnut windowsill, more than a hundred years old, compared with the size it was when it was first installed.
Cabin wall logs, dismantled and ready to be cleaned and restored.
Cabin wall logs, cleaned and sealed.
Cabin wall logs, ready to be rebuilt.
Here you can see the inside of one of the restored cabins in Iowa City. You can see the straw in the colored chinking- this is a nod to the materials they would have used when originally building cabins in this era. Pioneers often used a mixture of straw, mud, and manure among other materials in the early years to keep their cabins weather-tight.
It is said that two different men built the Iowa City cabins. During the restoration, we could clearly see the different stroke patterns used by each pioneer. One would have ax marks this far apart, another a different distance, for instance. Each builder brings his own skill and leaves his own fingerprint on the building. Here Jason works on one of the reproduction hewn timbers.
“Restoring Historic Cabins - Phase One”
(Video courtesy of “City Channel 4 - Iowa City” YouTube channel)