What began with a set of plans that caught his eye has become one of the most admired pieces in the Marzen House Museum.
Local woodworker Jeff Kearns didn’t set out to create a museum piece.
“About 30 years ago, I saw a set of plans for it, and they intrigued me,” he said.
That curiosity led him to build a replica of a Calistoga wagon, complete with hand-crafted oxen and working wheels. While visitors admire the finished wagon, Kearns said one of the biggest challenges was something most people never notice.
“Making the wheels round,” he said with a laugh.
Each wheel is built from eight sections that must be cut at precisely the right angles.
“If they’re not perfectly right, they don’t work,” he said.
The wagon isn’t just for display.
“You could tie a couple of dachshunds to it and put it in a parade down the street,” Kearns joked.
One of his favorite parts of the project wasn’t the wagon itself, but the team pulling it.
“Making the oxen was fun, especially the looks on their faces and positioning them to make them look like real animals,” he said.
Like many artisans, Kearns isn’t afraid to admit that mistakes happen along the way.
“Of course they do,” he said. “Then you throw that out. There’s kindling that goes in the fireplace, and you start over.”
The Calistoga wagon is only one example of Kearns’ woodworking. He has also built canoes, rocking horses, buckboard benches and many other pieces over the years.
His canoes are more than decorative.
“I make them to be used,” he said. “It irritates me when people win them in a raffle and hang them up as a showpiece. They belong on the water.”
Kearns, who serves as Pershing County public administrator, has donated handcrafted pieces to the Frontier Days raffle for many years. The Calistoga wagon was one of those donations.
When Lovelock resident Darlene Moura won the wagon, Kearns wondered where such a large piece would end up.
“It’s about 15 feet long when it’s all together,” he said. “Nobody has room for it.”
He was pleased when she later donated it to the museum.
“I thought the museum was a great place to put it,” he said.
Moura bought raffle tickets because she admired the wagon from the beginning.
“I really liked the wagon and oxen,” she said. “That is why I bought raffle tickets.”
She never expected to win.
“There was no chance that I would win. Besides, where would you put something that large?”
After winning the raffle, Moura asked family members where the wagon should go.
“I asked all members of my family. No one had a solution,” she said.
Friends suggested donating it to the Marzen House Museum. After Moura showed Bonnie Skoglie photographs of the wagon, Skoglie immediately saw its potential.
“She accepted the donation,” Moura said. “She immediately started having ideas for a display.”
The museum transformed those ideas into the Cowboy Room’s 40 Mile Desert display, where the wagon now has a permanent home.
Just south of present-day Lovelock, emigrants leaving the Carson Sink faced about 40 miles without a dependable source of water before reaching the Humboldt River near today’s Lovelock. The crossing tested both people and their oxen, making Kearns’ Calistoga wagon a fitting centerpiece for the exhibit.
“I commend the staff and volunteers of the museum for the work they did,” Moura said. “I encourage everyone to stop by and look at the Cowboy Room. In fact, go through all of the museum. You will be amazed.”
For this year’s Frontier Days raffle, Kearns expects to donate a buckboard bench, something he says fits easily into a garden, mud room or home.
“Buckboards were the pickup trucks of the day, used for most any light hauling jobs,” he said.
When asked which piece he would most like future generations to remember him by, he didn’t hesitate.
“One of my rocking horses.”
His rocking horses have traveled much farther than Pershing County. Kearns said they’ve found homes throughout the United States and as far away as Argentina, Australia and Scotland, with many still bringing smiles to children here in Lovelock.
“I like building stuff for little kids,” he said. “They get so much enjoyment out of it.”
Whether it’s a museum-quality wagon, a handcrafted canoe or a rocking horse loved by generations of children, Kearns’ work reflects the same philosophy: build it well, build it to be used and build it to last.
Today, visitors admire not only Kearns’ craftsmanship but also the generosity that brought the wagon to the museum. Jeff Kearns created it and donated it to the Frontier Days raffle. Darlene Moura later donated it to the museum so the entire community could enjoy it for years to come.
For more information about the Frontier Days raffle, call Misty Moepono-Wood at 775-442-1158.
Scan the QR code to visit the Marzen House Museum’s Facebook page for museum news, exhibits and upcoming events.
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