Charles Goodnight - Goodnight House Restoration

Goodnight House Restoration

External images
Charles Goodnight House, 1888

The Goodnight home is located one-quarter mile south of U.S. Highway 287 and about 40 miles east of Amarillo, Texas. The home was renovated by the Armstrong County Museum from 2006 to 2012. The structure has been painted to resemble its appearance in 1887. The interior was restored based on research into the original paint and wallpapers used. The home and 30 acres were donated in 2005 by Amarillo businessman Brent Caviness and a partner, Goodnight’s first wife, Mary Ann, taught children from the area in the bunkhouse. She let the cowboys have it at night and moved their things aside for school during the day,” Goodin said.

Montie Goodin, a member of the museum board who was born in the Goodnight house in 1931, two years after Goodnight's death, said that Goodnight had no concept of his own importance: "It didn't matter who you were, he invited all in."

The house, included in the National Register of Historic Places, had electricity and sheltered hundreds of ranch workers and cowboys over the years. Beginning in 2006, the Armstrong County Museum in Claude started raising money to restore the structure and make it the centerpiece of the Charles Goodnight Historical Center. Nearly $1.8 million has been raised, but another $600,000 is needed. Funds were contributed by several Amarillo-area philanthropies as well as fundraisers from the Texas Historical Foundation. The first phase of the restoration, which included work on the foundation, porches, roof, and exterior paint, has been completed. Goodin said that the next step will include interior painting and wallpapering. A small rope bed built by Adam Sheek, Goodnight's second stepfather, a minister and a furniture maker, will be placed in the house upon renovation. Ruth Robinson of Clarendon, the seat of Donley County, who is a great-great-niece of Goodnight's, donated the bed as well as her mother's Victorian bedroom set. The house is schedule to open in April 2013.

Read more about this topic:  Charles Goodnight

Famous quotes containing the words house and/or restoration:

    Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?
    George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

    I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are, therefore, suffering from galloping consumption. The restoration of the wheel arrests the progress of the fell disease.
    Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)