Oyen-Person Log Cabin

Oyen-Person Log Cabin. . During the winter of 1880-1881, Iver Oyen made a number of ten-mile round trips between his homestead claim and a stand of timber along the Big Sioux River. After he felled, dressed, and debarked large cottonwood and maple trees, his team of horses dragged the tree trunks to his claim. He then whipsawed them into thick uniform planks for the walls of a log cabin 12-½ by 14-feet., Oyen drilled holes through the vertical width of each plank. Branches were straightened to become dowels and were inserted to align the plank walls. He notched plank ends to make double dovetailed corners, a typical Scandinavian feature., A year later Oyen traded his claim and cabin to Lars Person. During the Dakota Boom, at times the tiny cabin's loft and lower level provided sleeping space for as many as 15 persons, including newly arrived Norwegian immigrants and the Person family., In 1999 at the urging of Art Moe, owner Vince Hanson donated the Oyen-Person log cabin to the Minnehaha County Historical Society. After a six-year, $15,000 restoration, it was moved to this site in 2005.