(Arnolds Park)– An engineer hired to evaluate a historic site in Arnolds Park is recommending major repairs to the Abbie Gardner cabin. It’s the site of the Spirit Lake massacre of 1857, where about three dozen Europeans were killed by members of the Dakota tribe who used the area for hunting. Thirteen-year-old Abbie Gardner survived and was briefly taken hostage, and three decades later she bought her family’s cabin and gave tours.
The cabin needs to have the shingles and boards on the roof replaced, repair corners of the structure and install a handicapped accessible door.
The cabin was one of Iowa’s first tourist attractions and Gardner operated it herself until her death in 1921. Her son sold the property to the Iowa Conservation Commission in 1941.
