After a couple years worth of remodeling and construction work, the Wyatt Earp birthplace in Monmouth will once again be ready to be shown off.
A ribbon-cutting will be held Friday afternoon at the site followed the next day by an open house.
Jason Robbins, on the board overseeing the birthplace, tells Galesburg’s Morning News on WGIL he just couldn’t let the site go to waste after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The people that had previously poured in a lot of years, and a lot of hard work over decades, one of them was in a nursing home over in Iowa, at the of 94…the people who had done so much over the years were not in the area any more,” said Robbins, also a Monmouth-area businessman.
Renovations by family members, his employees, and others had gone on for about a year and a half. Robbins says in all that time, there always seemed to still be visitors to the home.
“We’ve had anywhere from three to five visitors per week as we’ve been renovating this,” said Robbins. “Some of them from southern Illinois; some of them from states as far away as Washington. The most recent were four bikers that drove four hours just to come and check it out.”
Robbins says by and large, most of the visitors he ran into all said they’d be back.
Robbins plans on renting out the birthplace as an AirBnB, but also wants to expand in the area so that there’s a whole western-themed theme park-type venue.
Robbins says the birthplace has a new roof, and has had a lot of painting and other work done.
