Federal Construction Inc. and nonprofit officials are scheduled next week to break ground on a new museum for the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home & Museum in Mansfield.
Federal Construction, the general contractor and construction manager for the project, is scheduled to begin taking bids tomorrow for subcontractors on the $1 million project, said Dustin Hemsworth, project manager for the Springfield company. Buxton Kubik Dodd Creative is architect of record for the new museum, he said.
Hemsworth said a planned April 2 groundbreaking ceremony at the Mansfield farm has been rescheduled to April 10 due to forecasted inclement weather.
Construction of the 7,400-square-foot facility, located on a plat immediately adjacent to museum home Rocky Ridge Farm, is expected to be complete by Dec. 31, Hemsworth said.
“They’ve overgrown their older, smaller museum that they’ve got, and they want to take the farm back to original conditions,” he said of the nonprofit owners of the historical site where “Little House on the Prairie” writer Laura Ingalls Wilder died. “They want to get rid of the existing museum, and they want to take it all back to the original farm conditions. In order to do that, they have to put a museum on a property just adjacent to it.”
The Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum and The Wilder Home Association operate the farm and museum, according to their
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