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Preserve the Potter-Wright Building
Imagine, a 27-room boutique hotel in downtown Red Cloud. Hotel Garber will be just that, and more! The Potter-Wright Building rehabilitation will breathe new life into a 1901 structure. In addition to aligning with our commitment to historic preservation, the property will provide much-needed lodging for tourists and expanded meeting facilities for events and retreats. It will allow our visitors to the National Willa Cather Center to stay longer to enjoy the museum and all that Cather loved about Webster County.
The Willa Cather Birthplace
Willa Cather's birth home, a rural farmhouse in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, is at risk of collapse. The original wooden structure, which is in disrepair, will require significant restoration in order to be saved. In May 2023 a Virginia realtor purchased the house, sparing it from demolition. Her intention is to donate it to a nonprofit within a year. The Willa Cather Foundation is continuing to work alongside stakeholders in Virginia to ensure the site's preservation.
Making a Place: A Long History of Red Cloud
As we mark the publication centenary of Willa Cather's A Lost Lady, a new permanent exhibit for the Farmers and Merchants Bank is in development. Making a Place: A Long History of Red Cloud will invite visitors explore the novel's connections to Red Cloud through subjects that are both present and absent in Cather's fiction. Objects and narrative will explore topics that include the Red Cloud region as home to the Pawnee tribe; the lives of Silas and Lyra Garber—in life and as portrayed as Captain and Mrs. Forrester in A Lost Lady; town-making and homesteading; banking and the Panic of 1893; and early preservation efforts led by the National Willa Cather Center's founder, Mildred Bennett.
Donations of $500 or more will be featured on the exhibit's credit panel. Credit panel recognition must be finalized by 9/30/23.