Theophile Bruguier Cabin, Log cabin from 1860 in Riverside Park, Sioux City, United States.
The Theophile Bruguier Cabin is a single-room log structure built about 1860 in Riverside Park in Sioux City, Iowa. It was originally covered with wood veneer outside and plaster inside, and was dismantled and rebuilt in the park by Civil Works Administration workers in 1934.
The cabin was built by Theophile Bruguier, a French-Canadian fur trader who married two daughters of Yankton Sioux Chief War Eagle. In the 1930s, workers from the Civil Works Administration uncovered and relocated the structure to its current location after finding it concealed beneath wooden cladding.
The cabin was dedicated in 1936 as a memorial to the "friendly Indians of the Sioux nation who lived in peace with the early pioneers" and to Theophile Bruguier as the first permanent white resident within Sioux City's present boundaries. Bruguier settled in 1849 with his two wives, Dawn and Blazing Cloud, daughters of Yankton chief War Eagle, and their extended family.
The cabin stands in Riverside Park, near the confluence of the Missouri and Big Sioux Rivers that Bruguier settled in 1849. It was moved to this park and rebuilt by Civil Works Administration workers in 1934, then dedicated as a memorial two years later. Look for the National Register of Historic Places listing, granted in 2000.
The structure lay hidden under modern wooden cladding for decades before being rediscovered in the 1930s. Workers completely dismantled and reassembled it piece by piece in Riverside Park, making its relocation a preservation effort rather than simple restoration.
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