ABSTRACT
Outdoor, or open air, museums are groups of collected or donated buildings moved to a museum setting. In North America, they are often arranged in simulated village landscapes that interpret colonial, frontier, or early settlement periods by displaying buildings and artifacts. Open air museum buildings are typically donated, then moved to the museum site. The buildings are often disassembled before they are moved. Frequently, the authors find that timber locations within a structure are improperly recorded or not recorded at all, and timbers wind up in the wrong location when reassembled. The Speece Shelter contains sawn lumber from the Speece Warehouse, a business that was located on the Wabash & Erie Canal’s towpath in Carrollton, Indiana. The structure was believed to have been constructed about 1850, but it is unclear from what part of the warehouse the lumber originates and if it was part of an original structure or a later addition.
