University of Illinois To Move its Oldest House
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Jan. 13, 2008
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will pay $35,000 to move the 1870 Mumford House in the spring of 2008.
Credit: Landmarks Illinois
UPDATE: On Mar. 11, 2009, the university's board of trustees voted against moving the Mumford House.
It's a wonder the oldest building on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus survived at all, much less on a large, bustling campus of 42,000 students.
But now the university wants to move the Mumford House, a farmhouse it built in 1870, for green space, and some fear the National Register-listed house has a dim future.
Built to exemplify a model farmhouse, the Mumford House has been empty since the mid-1990s. The university, which wants to move the farmhouse to make way for a landscaped plaza for its new bell tower, plans to move the Mumford House to a site two miles away, where the road may be widened in a few years. It will cost $35,000 to move the house, scheduled for April or May, according to university spokeswoman Robin Kaler.
"If it's moved to that location, our fear is that it'll be out of sight, out of mind," says Lisa DiChiera, director of advocacy at Chicago-based Landmarks Illinois, which in 2006 listed the Mumford House as one of the state's 10 most endangered historic places. "Why can't [the university] just spend that money to give the building a nice paint job and front steps and make it look like an attraction?"
After the Mumford House is moved, Landmarks Illinois says it could lose its National Register status, a financial blow. "Any opportunity to raise funds based on its listing on the National Register will obviously be gone," DiChiera says.
The university plans to hold a public meeting on Jan. 22 to discuss the relocation of the Mumford House.
Read more about the Mumford House
Read Vince Michael's blog post about the potential move
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