Burns Park Cabin, City Landmark, Doomed

bin, City Landmark, Doomed
it to use on the fair-! clothes before entering the park's used the uilding as a storage
One of the best-known land- p·ounds. wading pool. Ice skaters donned place and workshop for the buildmarks
in Ann Arbor is doomed to Members of the Historical So- their skates and kept warm there. ing of scenery. But the old cabin
disappear. The Burns Park Ca- ciety are now trying to find a At one lime the building was won't hold heat now.
bin - a shelter for many varied place to preserve the logs con- also used as a Seventh Ward Mortar is chapping away from
activities in its long life - will be taining the carvings. polling place. tHe chinks between its logs. Wintorn
down by the city. During fair-time, the cabin was :\loved Cabin dows have been broken out by
Part of the reason it will be used to house various types of In 1921, the city moved the the stones hurled at the cabin in
razed lies in the fact that ter- exhibits - needlework, home cabin to its present site in the the testing of youthful arms.
mites are eating away at it and crafts and other arts on display park to make room for the con- Even the logs themselves are suethe
.other part is that the city at the fairs. struction of the Burns Park cumbing to the appetites ot inneeds
the site for the erection W h en the Burns Park fair- School. It continued to serve the sects and the constant weatherof
a new park shelter. grounds were sold to the city and skaters and waders, in season and ing.
At present, the building is a the fair moved to what is now various summer park activities Soon an that may remain of
storage place for scenery used by Veterans Memorial Park at the were carried on in its shade - the cabin will be the logs carrying
the Ann Arbor Civic Theater. Its west edge of the city, the Parks but the voters used the school the names of otherwise forgotten
drafty interior also houses ter- Department took over the build- building. pioneers. And even these will need
mites and other insect life which ing. It then was used as a place During the last seven years, a place to continue their gradual
threaten ultimately to bring an where chi1dren could change Civic Theater stage crews have deterioration.
end to the building.
Plans of the Park Department
call for tearing the cabin down
and replacing it with a more
modern and usable structure.
"Sometime in March" is the date
set for this work.
A new building would serve in
the winter time as a shelter house
for ice skaters and, in the summer
months, as a central location
in the park around which activities
could be co-ordinated.
But the building has not always
had such a ramshackle appearance;
nor has it been neglected
for want of usefulness.
Building Date Uncertain
Exact date of the building's
construction is in doubt. An inscription
over the door would
place the building's first year as
either 1848 or 1898.
Authorities differ on which is
the date of actual construction.
One source said the two dates
represent the time during which
pioneers, whose names are carved
into interior logs of the cabin,
came to and settled in the Ann
Arbor area.
A spokesman for the Washtenaw
Historical Society said that
the building was constructed on
the site now occupied by Burns
Park SchOol. The Washtenaw
Pioneers, an organization of early
settlers in the county, are generally
conceded 1o bP the original
owners of the building, having
LOG CABIN IN ITS LAST WINTER: The log cabin at Burns Park is seeing Its last winter
this ,year, accordinJ{ to Parks Department planners. The building is expected to be razed in
:March to makt> way for a uf'w shelter for ice t~kltters in winter and summertime park activities.
Age of the building is uneutain with possible construction dates ranginK' from 18t8 to 1898.