After a decade of restoration efforts, it’s about to open its doors in an effort to educate the public about life in the days of pioneer settlement of the West.

A public open house is slated for the Edwin & Leah Smout Log Cabin this Saturday at 11 a.m.

The log cabin, located behind the Marriott-Slaterville City Offices at 1570 W. 400 North, dates back to 1859, according to a plaque at the site.

According to Jean Branch, a volunteer with the Susan Marriott Camp of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, or DUP, who helped bring the log cabin to its current location and restore it, the log cabin restoration has been a long process.

“We’ve been working on this log cabin for about 10 years to restore it,” she said. “This little log cabin was sitting out in the fields where it was moved from the Mound Fort area. It was dilapidated, it had no roof, no floor, the north side was missing and the cows in the field had made it their home, so you can imagine what it looked like and what it was like inside.”

In addition to wear and tear done by cattle and time, she described the logs that had remained on site as being “almost petrified” due to the fact that they’d been exposed to years of irrigation water.

Branch said the DUP partnered with Marriott-Slaterville in 2014 to bring the cabin to a new home in the city.

“We got a couple of guys that tore it apart, numbered the logs that were left and relocated it down by Venture Academy School back in by Four Mile Creek, which was a wonderful setting but it was kind of hidden,” she said. “These two men went up and got logs in the mountains to rebuild the north wall and just made it gorgeous. It was like the original log cabin.”

However, disaster would befall the first restoration attempt.

“Windows were broken out, doors were broken, graffiti was written all over and marijuana parties were held,” Branch said. “We just had a horrible time.”

The cabin was subsequently moved to its current location behind the Marriott-Slaterville City Offices, where restoration work would resume.

Branch said it was then time to fill the cabin with items that may have filled pioneer homes.

“Then us DUP ladies went to work and we’ve found artifacts, antiques, refurbished them and put them in there to the period of around 1900,” she said. “We even have the original chamber pot that was in that little log cabin in there today. It’s unbelievable the stories we can tell.”

Plans are to tell those stories to as many people as possible.

“In the fall, we will invite the fourth graders of the Weber County schools to come for a private tour and tell them how life was back in the 1800s — show them how the butter was made, how they went to the bathroom at night, how they threaded on a sewing machine,” she said. “These kids don’t have any idea. We think it’s going to be a great addition to the community.”

A private dedication of the log cabin was done by members of the city and the DUP last Saturday, but this weekend’s festivities will be open to the public.

“We won’t have the long program and the histories and all the dignitaries — it will be a short program — but we want the community to know about this,” Branch said. “It’s a tribute to all of the pioneers that came out here, made the sacrifice, left everything. Some of them never made it and sacrificed their lives, but they came out and the stories never end. It’s a way to honor them, cherish our heritage and hope that others can come and enjoy it as well.”

While unable to run the log cabin as a full-time or part-time museum, Branch told the Standard-Examiner she personally will take requests to schedule private showings of the log cabin on her home phone at 801-731-6880.