Hootin an Hollarin cabin gets a facelift


Greg Moss recently completed repairs to the Hootin an Hollarin cabin, which serves as a promotional landmark for the long-running festival that, until this year, has been celebrated for six decades. With the help of Eric Case, Moss replaced rotting boards and logs and old, failing chinking in the structure, which was originally a smokehouse that was donated for the first Hootin an Hollarin in 1961. PHOTO COURTESY GREG MOSS

The little Hootin an Hollarin cabin on the Gainesville square got a recent facelift with the replacement of some rotting logs and old chinking. 

Greg Moss, who was hired by the Hootin an Hollarin Committee to repair the cabin, was assisted by Eric Case in tending to the former little smokehouse that was hauled to the square by volunteers in 1961 to serve as a landmark for the festival. This year was the first time in six decades that the festival wasn’t held; it was canceled due to concerns related to the covid-19 pandemic.

Moss said the cabin’s original logs were “hand hewn and seem to have been done with an adze or a broad ax, according to the markings on the logs.” He used a chainsaw to cut replacement logs from a dozer deck on his property at Tecumseh and then “beat on them with a hatchet to give them similar markings to the original logs,” he said.

To replace the old, disintegrating chinking, he had to remove the interior lining made of rough-cut oak board installed vertically. The vertical boards cover “the charred inside of the logs,” Moss said, adding that the cabin had been burned “at least once, and it is amazing to me that it is burnt so badly inside, but you can hardly tell on the outside.”

In between the oak boards and the charred logs, he found three pitching horseshoes “and an old Miller beer bottle.” He hung the horseshoes on the roof brace inside the door and set the beer bottle on top of the wall where it was found, he said.

Moss said the work was “a fun little project,” adding that he enjoys “bringing buildings from the past to a place where they can be enjoyed for years to come.”

Ozark County Times

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