Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
All Dressed Up
Shiloh Museum cited for caretaking of cabin
On any given weekend, the 1850s log cabin on the grounds of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History is apt to be full of life. In the summer, it might be storytellers or fiber artists spinning or weaving. This season, it might be Santa Claus spreading holiday cheer.
None of that would be possible without the restoration that took place in 2023. And just like those events, that restoration was open to the public, taking place next to the Razorback Greenway and Spring Creek in downtown Springdale. In January, the Preserve Arkansas organization will honor the museum for that restoration and the way it was conducted with the Outstanding Achievement in Preservation Education Award. A ceremony Jan. 26 at Robinson Center in Little Rock will also recognize several other projects statewide.
“Receiving this award from our statewide preservation organization is especially meaningful, as it acknowledges the care and concern we have for our historic buildings and what they mean to our community,” says Angie Albright, director of the Shiloh Museum. “Investment in preservation is an investment in many more years of education about the way so many lived and worked in the Ozarks, a story we love to tell through our historic buildings.”
Moved to the grounds of the Shiloh Museum in 1978, the log cabin was already 124 years old then. Over the ensuing years, the cabin had deteriorated to the point that both the roof and floor were unstable and needed reinforcement, says museum spokeswoman Sandra Cox Birchfield. Thanks to a fundraising campaign spearheaded by Albright and supported by the museum’s staff
and the Board of Trustees, salvaged logs from 19th-century structures were repurposed to shore up the walls — with new chinking and daubing placed between them — the wood floors were repaired, cleaned and treated with linseed oil, and the wood-shake roof was replaced with cedar shakes.
The project involved River Ridge Builders of Mayflower, a log restoration company led by President Matt McCraw and his team, with design work by Clements & Associates
Architecture Inc. of North Little Rock.
The journey to that restoration in 2023 was a long one for what the museum calls the Ritter-McDonald Log Cabin. It was originally built south of Elm Springs on land that belonged to the Choctaw tribe and then to a man named William Barrington, Birchfield says.
“A Confederate soldier mentioned the cabin in a letter, and Confederate Gen. Earl Van Dorn passed the cabin on his way to Bentonville, making the
structure a witness to the Pea Ridge campaign during the Civil War,” she explains. “In 1866, the cabin and land were bought by James Ritter, the great-grandfather of Roy Ritter, former Springdale mayor and founder of the AQ Chicken House restaurants. The cabin remained in the Ritter family until 1912 and had a series of owners until 1958 when the McDonald family acquired it. In 1978, the family donated the cabin to the Shiloh Museum.”
The cabin, says Birchfield, was originally free standing but later was part of a bigger structure with more rooms, explaining why there’s a door in each wall. After its move to the museum grounds, a fireplace was added made from stones from the McGarrah-Reed home in Elkins.
Preserve Arkansas, Birchfield says in a news release, is a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to building stronger communities by reconnecting Arkansans to their heritage and empowering people to save and rehabilitate historic places. By presenting educational programs, advocating for preservation at the federal, state, and local levels, and assisting property owners with the means and expertise to preserve and restore their structures, Preserve Arkansas has been a statewide voice for preservation in Arkansas since 1981.