Back in the early 1970s, Jerry Barksdale, then an Athens attorney, discovered the dog-trot style cabin he passed nearly every day driving to and from work on Alabama 251 was built by his great-great-grandfather Daniel Barksdale in the early 1800s.

The discovery sparked Barksdale’s interest in genealogies and local history, pushing him to write “Revolutionaries and Rebels,” a story about his family’s struggles from the Revolutionary War through Civil War times.

Chronicling the long history of ancestor Micajah McElroy, a well-to-do Revolutionary War veteran and the builder of the second Limestone County Courthouse, through the years to McElroy’s grandchildren, who fought as Confederate soldiers in the Civil War, Barksdale found much of the story took place in the little house on 251.

“I have an interest in preserving the house for that reason,” Barksdale said.

Now covered in lap siding, the house has been added onto several times since it was first built. However, the original logs remain, as do two stone chimneys that flank the home on either side. Barksdale has been told the logs hidden behind the siding are sound, and he has already had a conversation with Athens City Mayor Ronnie Marks about plans to preserve the house.

According to Barksdale, the home will eventually have to be relocated to make room for a proposed roundabout on 251.

“We’ve discussed moving the house to where the old (Athens) Middle School is,” Barksdale said. “The city Board of Education owns that property, and they say they may sell the property.”

The logs will have to be marked and taken down one by one, then stored until the cabin can be reassembled on a new site.

Barksdale hopes to drum up interest in preserving his family’s log cabin at the upcoming meeting of the Limestone County Historical Society. The meeting will start 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 17, at the First Presbyterian Church’s Rogers Center, 112 S. Jefferson St. in Athens. Barksdale will speak to his plans for preserving the house and its history.

“It’s one of the oldest houses in Limestone County, and I hate to see it bulldozed down,” Barksdale said. “We want to get the historical society and city behind this.”

He said all he’s looking for now is a site owned by the city where the house can be reassembled.

“I’ll get out and raise the money to tear it down, mark the logs and re-erect it without the taxpayers getting involved,” he said.

Current residents

For the last 47 years, Boncile Downs and her husband have rented the home at the corner of 251 and Lindsay Lane. The couple are now in their 80s.

Stakes in the yard show where measurements for the roundabout have already been taken. If the stake placements are correct, the roundabout would come through just a few yards from where the front door currently stands.

However, Barksdale has remained adamant the couple be allowed to live in the house as long as they like, and Downs prefers the interior of her home to the exterior, anyway.

“I don’t care what the outside looks like,” she said. “I love the inside. It’s beautiful.”