Why blog about a house? The Peter Stuhr House is more than just a house, it is a piece of Hall County's past. But more importantly, how often does an opportunity like this come around?  As a living history site, Stuhr Museum has a great number of buildings, several of them houses, but they came onto the grounds in the 1960s. Documenting how they were prepared for the living history setting was just not an important thing back then for three reasons - it wasn't in the mindset of the people working on the museum at the time, and secondly because they were getting a number of structures one after another that had to be dealt with, and finally, just like today there just wasn't enough help to go around.  So for the most part, this blog will be about the opportunity to share the process of taking this house, with all its modern additions and corrections, and returning it to a 19th century setting.  We will strive to be informative, and that perhaps we will bring things to light that you hadn't thought of before, but we hope that there will be some of you out there who will have things to share with us as well.  This project is going to take a while. We cannot just paint the rooms, strip off the vinyl siding and open it to the public. We have to get to know the old girl first. Carefully remove the layers, see what clues there are to her history, figure out how to get her back in shape. But this will also be more than just about the house. There is a furnishing  and interpretive plan to write, artifacts to consider, reproductions to be made or acquired. Funding, well, funding at a  non profit is always a topic of discussion. It may get to be a bumpy ride, but we have already found out some interesting things that we will be sharing with you soon, but we hope that you will join us for the whole journey.

I am Kay Cynova, Historian at Stuhr Museum. I was formerly the Director of Interpretive Resources at Stuhr Museum, retiring from that position at the end of 2022. I have been with the museum over thirty years. I was responsible for the interpretation in the recreated 1890s town on the museum grounds - Railroad Town, Nebr., and at the 1860s Log Road Ranche, and any other location where interpretation is needed. I continue to present programs on period clothing, foodways and genealogy, and am a member of ALHFAM, MOMCC and AAM.