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It’s not easy to move a log cabin.

“Did you ever play with Lincoln Logs as a kid?” asked Judy Van Atta, director of the Daughters of the American Revolution’s museums at Champoeg State Heritage Area. “We are going to magnify that by about 100 times.”

Museum officials have to move the Pioneer Mothers Memorial Cabin Museum about a quarter of a mile. Presently, the structure is near the Willamette River, on land that has eroded over the past 50 years; it’s now at risk of sliding in to the water.

Van Atta said what looks like a simple move of a relatively small log cabin poses all sorts of challenges. For instance, the Daughters of the American Revolution have a lease on the property where the cabin sits now, but not where it will.

That’s the least of the challenges, Van Atta said. The space between the existing location and the future one is densely populated by old-growth forest. The cabin must be moved without knocking down a single tree.

Unlike more modern homes, the cabin will have to be taken apart and reassembled log by log. However, building and rebuilding a log cabin no longer is a common skill in the construction industry, Van Atta added. Potential contractors had to possess a particular set of skills – those focused heavily on historical preservation.

Some logs need to be replaced, Van Atta said, and that in itself is difficult.

“You can’t buy logs as big as that original old-growth timber,” she said.

Price is the final obstacle, according to Van Atta, because it’s expected to be approximately half a million dollars. The money is coming from grants and private donations. Assuming that money can be raised in time, Van Atta said the move should begin by Sept. 1 and require approximately six months to complete.

The Oregon State Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution had the cabin built in 1929 as a romantic representation of a pioneer log cabin from 1891.

“It is much, much larger than any original pioneer log cabin,” Van Atta said.

Built to honor early pioneer mothers, the cabin features peeled, hand-hewn logs with a massive stone fireplace at one end of the main living room. The cabin has a sleeping loft and two small bedrooms.

The cabin is used to house artifacts from some 40 pioneer families. One is the heating stove that was brought to Oregon in 1838 by Father Francois Blanchet for use in the Catholic mission in St. Paul. The museum also has a detailed collection of guns and muskets dating from 1777 to 1853.

People interested in learning more about the move can call 503-678-5537.