Demolition unearths pioneer-era log cabin within house.
A Utah man who started to demolish what he thought was a frame house discovered it was built around a pioneer-era log cabin. Now, Randy Chambers plans to restore the cabin, which a history sleuth determined was built by an ancestor of his in the 1860s.
Workers discovered the larger frame house was built around the log cabin after tearing down wallboard and finding more walls of hand-hewn logs. The heavy logs were hidden from the outside by siding and additions. The start of demolition also revealed an odd feature of the century-old frame house. It had two front doors.
What started out as a demolition has now turned into a mission by Chambers to preserve a piece of history. He wanted to demolish the frame house adjoining his office to make space for a storage yard.
But as contractors started ripping out the plasterboard, they found more walls of a log cabin _ and immediately recognized that demolition was going to be a much tougher job.
At first, “I thought it was a liability _ because we didn’t know how sturdy it was,” Chambers said.
He began to wonder who built the cabin and when, and enlisted some help from somebody who collects property records and local history.
“That’s the only log cabin I know of in existence in this town,” says Farr West historian Brian Taylor.
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Read more: http://www.heraldextra.com/news/state-and-regional/utah/demolition-crew-discovers-old-cabin-inside-a-house/article_46456b37-f162-5d49-b20e-aa6e625b0775.html#ixzz1tVZyfpZc
