Several years ago, I awoke on an overcast and wintry day to a most unusual sight: a hometown landmark called the Crane House creeping slowly down the street on the back of an enormous flatbed trailer. Evicted from its original location (which was soon to become a Hollywood Video store), the old Victorian mansion — well, it was considered a mansion when it was built, at least in these parts — was transported about a mile south, placed on a quiet side road, and reborn as the Riverton Museum, a rare case (at least in Utah) of a historic building that was spared the wrecking ball when progress came a-calling. (Incidentally, if you’re inclined to follow that link for the museum, prepare your eyes before you click; the web page on the other end is a bit… busy.)
The moving of the Crane House was one of the most awe-inspiring things I’ve ever seen. The century-old, two-story home made the trip intact, not cut in half and reassembled like other older homes I’ve seen relocated. The place always looked big to me when I was a kid pedaling past on my Schwinn; it looked gargantuan coming down the middle of Redwood Road, as tall as the telephone poles it was passing. (Of course, the trailer beneath it raised it up a good five or six feet above ground level.)
This morning I spotted something on the InterWebs that might be even more impressive:
That’s a home that’s probably about the same age as the Crane House, but appears to be much bigger to my eye, being moved moved seven miles downriver from its original site in Palmetto, Florida, to begin a new life as a visitor’s center at a nature preserve. As this article points out, moving the house by water has one major advantage over the land-based method that was used for the Crane: you don’t have to worry about power lines or automobile traffic.
Pretty amazing stuff…
Wasn’t the Crane House where that restaurant was? Also where Golden Tree started out?
There was a turn of the century (maybe a bit later) home on the corner of 86th and 7th when I was in middle school – they relocated to about 12th East and 86th and you’d never know that it wasn’t there from the getgo – my understanding was that was done as one entire move – no pieces – Pretty fascinating and nice to see there is some building preservation still going on in the world.
You are correct, sir – the Crane House was home to a short-lived, fancy-pants restaurant called the Evergreen or some such, and then Riverton’s favorite greasy-spoon Chinese takeout, The Golden Tree. (The names of both restaurants were of course inspired by the giant pine tree that stood out in front, which Riverton City decorated every December as the “town Christmas tree.” I miss that old pine…)
I wish there was more preservation going on in these parts…