JOPLIN, Mo. — It took 55 minutes Thursday morning to move the “Volunteer House” at 2502 S. Joplin Ave. to its new home in Schifferdecker Park.

“It went absolutely perfectly,” said David Glenn, a commercial real estate broker in Joplin who volunteered to supervise the preservation effort for the city.

“We did not have to raise any lines,” he said. “We were nine inches from the nearest wire. We had no damage to the shrink wrap covering the house. It could have not went better.”

The house, which was badly damaged by the May 22 tornado, was a place where volunteers involved in the relief effort often gathered. While they were there, they wrote inspirational messages to the residents of Joplin. Thousands of messages cover the surviving walls, floors, studs and doors of the house.

The house, City Manager Mark Rohr has said, is a symbol of the more than 118,000 volunteers who came to Joplin after the storm.

“Most of the house is covered with messages to inspire our citizens,” Rohr said in a recent written statement. “We have come so far in recovery largely because of the volunteers. We are truly indebted to them.

“We wanted the opportunity to keep this house as a reminder of how the volunteers have supported us from day one with their hard work, prayers and encouragement.”

The house and other items, such as damaged cars, are being saved for possible use in the development of a museum in the future. It cost $8,260 to move the house. Donations are to cover that expense.

It took four days to prepare the house for the move. It was lifted off its foundation. Two steel beams were placed under it. Attached to those beams were two sets of tandem wheels.

Orren Tilton, with Tilton & Sons House Moving, of Carthage, drove the Kenworth truck that pulled the house. He took it north on Main Street to 20th Street. From there, he went west to Schifferdecker Avenue. From there, he went north to the First Street entrance to the park.

Tilton was accompanied by two service trucks from Empire District Electric Co., three police escorts and two of his own trucks. He was helped by two of his sons, Darrin and Aaron.

A typical house might weigh 45 to 50 tons. This house, Tilton said, probably weighed about 12 to 14 tons. It was so much less because so much of it was missing.

“It was a well-built house. It was full-dimension lumber,” he said. “Even with bricks on the outside, it took a beating.”

An advantage for him, Tilton said, was the builder’s decision to overlap the floor joists near the center of the house by nearly seven feet. Most houses today, he said, might have a foot or so of overlap.

The move was delayed for a few minutes on Schifferdecker Avenue north of Fourth Street. Workers with the moving company used a chain saw extended on a long pole to trim limbs from a tree.

At two spots along the route, the house reached speeds of nearly 20 mph. Tilton, wanting to obstruct traffic as little as possible, wasted no time getting the house down the road.

“The house has a low roof line,” he said. “It went under the lines real well. You can go pretty good when you don’t have to stop to move lines.”



CHAUFFEUR PRAISED

Said Glenn: “He maneuvered that house around railroad lights and stoplights like they were nothing.”

Tilton said he wanted to thank the motorists who pulled over to let the house pass.

The house has a low roof line because the original roof was blown away by the tornado. Workers with AmeriCorps St. Louis, Willey Construction and Altura Homes constructed temporary trusses over the house. Materials were provided by Ridout Lumber. A crew from Tracker Marine, Miami, Okla., had covered the entire house with a blue shrink wrap that sheds water.

The house was the former home of Tim and Stacey Bartow. The preservation effort started with a message that Bartow painted on the south wall of his house. He wrote: “Thank you volunteers. We love you. You are our heroes.”

Bartow was approached by the city after the tornado about preserving just that message. As the months passed, the volunteers left their messages. A plan then was hatched to save not only the wall but the whole house.

The weather took its toll on the exposed house. Messages were lost where paint peeled away from the walls.

But, Tilton said, “They wrapped it at the right time — when it was dry. The floors are dry. Everything inside is dry.”

Tilton, who celebrated his 64th birthday Thursday, began moving houses with his father, Ferrell, when he was 12 years old. He moves about 12 houses a year.

About this house, he said: “They left a lot of messages in there. The Good Lord could be telling us to wake up to the storms of life.”