John,

I don't know about east Texas, but I worked on a project years ago that involved
moving a large two story Victorian house approximately 35 miles from Lamesa to
Lubbock.  Two brick chimneys and footings were needled and moved intact with the
structure.  The actual moving process took three days and required over 100
power lines to be raised or dropped.  Fortunately most of the travel was over
2-lane farm to market roads, but the heart stopping moment was crossing two
divided lanes of interstate and watching the flags on the trailing end of the
I-beams brushing the ground when the truck crossed the center drainage swale.
The house made it intact and we later found a discarded light bulb sitting on a
mantle that rolled a little, but never fell off during the whole trip.

The house movers were a family called the Bighams, and they more than lived up
to their name.  Any one of those old boys looked like they could have picked up
a house all by themselves.  At the time they had just bought a new truck and
were trying to come up with a name for it.  I told them about Archimedes saying,
"give me a lever and a place to stand and I can move the earth".  They were so
impressed they named the truck Archie.  It wouldn't half surprise me if the
Bighams aren't still hauling buildings around with Archie.  I can't remember
exactly where they were from, but I think it might have been either Slaton or
Tahoka.

Regards,

Lisa
____________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject:    Moving Historic House
Author: John Leeke <[log in to unmask]>
Date:       12/22/1999 1:26 PM

Who is good at moving historic houses in east Texas?


John Leeke, Preservation Consultant