116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
West Liberty stagecoach inn moves to become museum
Plans call for inn built before Iowa became a state to be refurbished
Feb. 26, 2024 4:01 pm, Updated: Feb. 27, 2024 7:40 am
A stagecoach inn built in 1841 began the journey to its new life Monday, moving from its home along Highway 6 in West Liberty to Heritage Park about 3 miles away where it will be restored and eventually become a public museum.
The Beers and St. John Company Coach Inn was built five years before Iowa became a state as a stagecoach inn and tavern. It became a private residence after the railroad arrived in Iowa City in 1855 and has been one ever since. Its owners, Emily and Nate Cahill, plan to build a new home on the property, so they donated the inn to the West Liberty Heritage Foundation.
The three-story inn is about 3,000 square feet. It has four large bedrooms, a foyer and a small bedroom that was used by the stagecoach driver.
“This property has got a lot of significance because it was built before the state of Iowa was even a state,” said Scott Brooke, a board member of the West Liberty Heritage Foundation. “We just couldn’t let it go down. We wanted to bring it in to restore it and use it as a museum piece.”
Moving the building took a lot of coordination between landowners, utility companies and the Iowa Department of Transportation, Brooke said. Portions of Highway 6 were closed in both directions Monday and power lines were taken down along the route to allow space for the building to be safely moved. The heritage foundation worked with Goodwin House Moving from Washington, Iowa, to accomplish the move.
Now that the building is in place at Heritage Park, the next step is to raise funds to help with its restoration. Brooke said the foundation hasn’t determined yet exactly how much will need to be raised, or how long the restoration would take. Once the restoration is finished, the foundation intends to open the building as a museum for public visits.
“Our first goal was just to get it here. Get it here in once piece and get it on the foundation,” Brooke said. “We had a really, really narrow window to get this thing moved. We had to get her moved on a certain timeline because of the weather and the ground conditions and everything else, because it had to travel across a couple of farm fields.”
The building still has much of its original hardware, including doors, doorknobs, fireplaces and mantles, which Brooke said will make the restoration easier.
“It’s still a pretty solid house. The beautiful thing about it is, for as old as it is, it’s not really been modernized and updated,” Brooke said.
Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com
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