The historic Power-Jackson Cabin that stood in the same Cobb County location for nearly 200 years has a new home.

The cabin, which was painstakingly disassembled by a team of preservation experts in late August, has been relocated to nearby Hyde Farm Park, where it will be put back together.

Preservationists were in a race against the clock to save and relocate the cabin, thought to be built around 1830, before severe deterioration destroyed the structure.

The relocation was made possible by donations totaling $70,000 from people in the community. The cabin will join two other Power family cabins already in the park.

“It’s exciting that the cabin is going to be preserved and that it is joining another two historic cabins at Hyde Farm Park,” said Trevor Beemon, executive director of Cobb Landmarks and Historical Society Inc. “Having the cabins all on one site provides a great opportunity for the public to see all three structures that belonged to the same family. It’s a unique piece of history.”

Steve Cole, who with his wife, Terri, longtime supporters and leaders of preservation projects in Cobb County, helped lead the effort to raise funds to save the cabin. He calls the cabin a “historic treasure.”

“It’s important to keep our history alive. The Power-Jackson Cabin was built when Andrew Jackson was president and is the oldest structure in Cobb County,” he said. “Why would we not work to save it? When an opportunity arises to preserve historical landmarks like the cabin and other important structures, we have to act on it.”

The Power-Jackson Cabin is a rived pine log house and may predate the Cherokee Land Lottery in 1832, making it the oldest structure in Cobb County. The large pine logs in the cabin were not hewn but instead were split, leaving the rounded surface on the exterior and a flat surface on the interior. It is a rare type of construction that makes the Power-Jackson Cabin unique. Cobb Landmarks is working with the University of West Georgia to conduct dendrochronology, the study of tree rings, to try to determine when the logs for the Power-Jackson Cabin were cut down.

The Power-Jackson Cabin is thought to the oldest structure in Cobb County. Courtesy of Trevor Beemon

Credit: Courtesy of Trevor Beemon

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Credit: Courtesy of Trevor Beemon

Cobb Landmarks has been in the forefront in advocating for the cabin’s preservation. After acquiring the cabin from the property owner, Cobb Landmarks and Cobb County Parks and Recreation reached an agreement in 2023 to relocate the cabin to Hyde Farm Park. The Cobb County Board of Commissioners approved the use of Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds to reconstruct the cabin at Hyde Farm Park.

Cobb County PARKS will handle the reconstruction and restoration process.

“Cobb County recognized the importance of saving these historic structures more than a decade ago when the Board of Commissioners approved a component of the 2011 SPLOST to restore landmark buildings at Hyde Farm,” said Ross Cavitt, Cobb County director of communications. “Moving the Power-Jackson Cabin to the PARKS property will enable us to save the last remaining example of single-pen with a rived log construction found in Cobb County, as well as provide a valuable education tool for the many visitors and school group that come to Hyde Farm each year.”

To get the relocation project under way, a crew of four experts from Leatherwood Inc., a Tennessee company that specializes in historic preservation, worked for six days to create diagrams of the cabin and tag all logs to ensure proper placement during reconstruction, Beemon said. The company previously assisted with the preservation of the two other cabins at Hyde Farm Park.

In addition, workers removed stones from the two chimneys and hearths, which also were relocated to the park for use in the reconstruction. In addition, materials from a small kitchen that was added to the cabin at a later date will be reassembled.

Cobb County PARKS has worked on engineering plans for the proposed cabin site.

When the project is completed, the cabin will be open to the public.

“A ceremony will be scheduled for the reopening of the cabin,” Beemon said. “We want to celebrate and thank all the generous donors who helped save the cabin and made the restoration project possible. The cabin is a symbol of our historic past that can be enjoyed by people of all ages.”

Trevor Beemon, executive director of Cobb Landmarks and Historical Society Inc.
Bob Andres / bandres@ajc.com
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