(Arnolds Park)– Plans are moving forward for an interpretive center at the Abbie Gardner Cabin. Anita Bomgaars of Friends of the Abbie Gardner Cabin outlined the proposal at Wednesday’s Arnolds Park City Council meeting. She’s requesting the city’s involvement in a joint project with the state of Iowa…
“After working on this project for about two years we’ve come to the realization that we needed to do a little bit more in purchasing the land than just having it be a part of our Friends group. The state had criteria they needed to have met. So we did some negotiations behind the scene and they are very amenable to having the city of Arnolds Park own the land and then lease it back to us with a very extended lease so that we would build an interpretive center on the site. You view this as obviously a win-win for both you and the city? It is definitely a win-win for both of us. I smile because we have a great board but none of us thought we would be the builders of this interpretive center. But it’s falling into our lap and we’re willing to take it and run with it.”
Bomgaars says the interpretive center will feature the curated story of the historic attraction, which she says they recently completed. She goes on to explain what they envision for the site…
“We see something facing the cabin. The cabin is central to this campus and we see the site becoming more of a sacred site. For years it’s been we don’t know what. A playground, a picnic area. You know it’s never really become what it should be. The State Archaeologist is starting a dig there June 19th and he already found items there last year that he’s going to be sharing with us on June 28th at 4:00 in the afternoon. He’ll talk about what he finds at the dig. It’s a sacred site. I mean it was where many people lost their lives. We want it to be that. We want to develop paths. We want to have some signage. We want to build some contemplative areas so people can sit, look out at Pillsbury Park and look at the lake, just like Abbie did.”
Bomgaars says her group is pleading with the state, which owns the Abbie Gardner Cabin, to make some badly needed repairs to it…
“We are encouraging them greatly to complete the replacement of the roof. There’s some ticking and some logs that need to be replaced; there’s drainage underneath the cabin that needs to be worked on. It needs a lot of love. It’s a structure that was here for Dickinson county. It was your first school, it was your first church and it was the home of Abbie’s family, so it’s got a lot of significance.”
The interpretive center will be a joint venture involving Friends of the Abbie Gardner Cabin; the city of Arnolds Park; Spirit of Okoboji and the State of Iowa.
