In 1933, an abandoned house was about to be demolished by the Wall Street
Mission so that the lumber could be used in a boy?s camp. As workers removed the
siding from the house, they discovered that the house was originally a log
cabin. Reverend John P. Hantla was in charge of the project. After doing some
research, he determined that the house was one of the log cabins of the
Theophile Bruguier farm. The cabin was given to the City of Sioux City as an
historic structure, and today it is considered to be the oldest structure in
Sioux City.
In 1934 the Sioux City Parks Department and the New Deal Civil Works
Administration took the old cabin down, log by log, and rebuilt it in Riverside
Park as a clubhouse for the Girls of ?68 Junior Pioneers. The restored building
was dedicated on June 17, 1936.
The cottonwood cabin is 35 feet long, 22 feet wide and 10 feet high. It was
built in the style known as ?double-log?. The hand-hewn logs were squared for a
tight fit and the chinks between the logs were filled with clay. While the
original fireplace may have been made of willow sticks woven together and
covered with mud, a new stone fireplace and chimney were added to the cabin
after it was moved. The homemade ?shake? shingles on the roof are reproductions
of the originals. A cement floor was also added, although the original floor was
probably sand or later wood. The cabin is thought to have once had glass windows
bought by Bruguier in St. Louis. Research indicates that the cabin was probably
the kitchen structure in a group of five or more cabins used by Theophile
Bruguier and his family. The cabin was entered into the National Register of
Historic Places in 2000.