Zane Grey Museum - History

History

A native of Zanesville, Ohio, Grey had established a dental practice in New York City in 1896 but soon grew dissatisfied with the field. He dabbled in semi-professional baseball and wrote his first stories and novels. They were not successful, but by 1905 he had decided to leave dentistry for writing. They had begun the process of building the first part of the house, the southern wing, after seeing the site on a fishing trip that year, and later they moved their families into it.

Grey continued to write westerns, and took two extended research trips to the Southwest over the next several years. He worked, at the time, in a bungalow near the house that is no longer extant. These resulted in Heritage of the Desert in 1911 and Riders of the Purple Sage the following year, his bestselling novel. With the proceeds from the latter work, he designed the study wing. It was built by a neighbor, Gottlieb Kuhn, in 1912.

He continued writing novels there for six more years until the nascent film industry beckoned. He and his wife moved to Altadena, California, where they eventually purchased an estate as he became even more commercially successful as a film producer as well. He remained in California until his 1939 death, but retained the Lackawaxen house for visits east. Both he and his wife are buried in Union Cemetery, not far from the house.

In 1945, Grey's widow sold the house to a friend, who operated it as an inn for 25 years. During that time, in 1955, the building suffered some serious flood damage, tearing off the roof of the first front porch. In 1973, they converted it into the museum, which they sold to the Park Service in 1989.

Floods in the summer of 2006 left 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 m) of water in the basement. The Park Service was able to get the collection to safety, but it was necessary to thoroughly dehumidify the space before reopening the museum.