The old log cabin that sits on the Mower County Fairgrounds was built in 1861, the same year Abraham Lincoln became president.

Friday, October 13, 2000

The old log cabin that sits on the Mower County Fairgrounds was built in 1861, the same year Abraham Lincoln became president. The same year the first shots were fired that started the Civil War.

The cabin was home to the pioneer Ole Severson family in Frankford Township, east of Grand Meadow. Tiny and dark, the cabin couldn’t have been a very comfortable first home, but the boards with the chinking in between probably kept out the cold Minnesota winter fairly well as the pioneer family went about the business of surviving.

The cabin was donated and moved to the Mower County Historical Society site, where it has stood since 1964, offering fairgoers and others a chance to peek at an authentic early home.

It will be torn down in 2000.

Why tear down a piece of Mower County history?

Because the bathrooms just west of the 139-year-old cabin are being remodeled, and the two buildings will be too close together to satisfy building code.

The old cabin was determined to be unsafe by historical society’s board members several years ago. That’s when society members, with the help of the Minnesota State Historical Society, embarked on the construction of another, almost identical, log cabin made of local oak logs the same way the Severson cabin probably was constructed.

The new cabin stands south of the Severson one on the fairgrounds and will replace the old one that really was a frontier home.