Mr. and Mrs. Jack Aufderheide have long been looking for a good, authentic log cabin.

Mrs. Aufderheide reasons that such a cabin, especially one with a spacious interior, would be an excellent place to display her huge collection of quilts, most of them dating from the 1800s.

The Brown County Historical Society also has sought a log cabin in mint condition; the fact that Mrs. Aufderheide is a historical society director makes for a convenient situation for both parties.

NOW THE cabin has emerged-from 50 years or so as a tin-covered garage at the Donald Rewitzer home, 1126 N. German.

Mrs. Rewitzer explains that plans were to tear down the old building to make way for a new garage, but the old logs of the two-story structure attracted passers-by.

“People would stop and say, ‘You’re not going to tear that down, are you?'”Mrs. Rewitzer said.”So we called Paul Klammer.”

Klammer, curator of the county museum, is known as one of the state’s foremost authorities on log cabins.

“The logs under the siding are in such good condition,” Klammer said, following his inspection. “I would hope that some use could be made of the house, either here in New Ulm or elsewhere.”

MOST UNUSUAL feature of the house, Klammer said, is its size.

“Most of them were 16 or 15 by 18,”he explained. “This one is 18 by 24.”

A log cabin could have been “thrown up”‘ in two to four days, he said, but it may have taken several months to construct the Rewitzer log house.

Klammer estimated that the house was built before 1880 — largely because of the square nails used. There is no mention in the property abstract of when the house was built.

MRS. AUFDERHEIDE sees the house as “just the one we were looking for.”

Problems now, however, include how to get the house from its present location to the Aufderheide’s 10-acre home outside of town, and the cost of such a move.

A price quotation by one mover was more than the Aufderheides feel they can pay; now Mr. Aufderheide and Klammer are discussing the likelihood of moving the building.

“We’d like to have it,” Mrs. Aufderheide says. “But for us to move it, it’s just out of sight.” She expresses a hope that someone will help finance the move of the cabin so it can be preserved.

New Ulm Daily Journal

June 22, 1976