EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region’s history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.

Forty years ago, on June 10, 1986, an unusual sight rolled through the streets of downtown Warren: a historic house, slowly and carefully navigating the city’s roads, perched on a moving trailer with crew members riding on its roof.

That house was the John Stark Edwards House, headquarters of the Trumbull County Historical Society.

And the man at the helm of society at the time, Jim McFarland, still remembers the journey as if it were yesterday.

“We didn’t have a lot of resources,” McFarland recalls, “but we had the house.”

At the time, the historic house sat on South Street, in a location that had become increasingly inhospitable. Originally situated near the loading docks of the Tribune Chronicle newspaper, the house had already been moved once — relocated to make room for a parking lot.

But by the mid-1980s, South Street was a different animal.

Train tracks ran straight through the area and heavy semi-truck traffic constantly shook the ground. The constant vibration was taking a visible toll on the old structure.

“Someone mentioned moving it to where the Smith house was on Mahoning,” McFarland said. “However, It didn’t work out.”

Then came a pivotal conversation. McFarland sat down with Zell Draz (then publisher of the Tribune), and she agreed to cover the cost of moving the house. The proposed new location, on Monroe Street, was ideal. It was close to the historic district, near the library and off the heavy truck routes that had plagued the South Street site.

McFarland, who had been with the historical society for about four years by then, got to work. He coordinated with Jack Foley from the city’s community development department to handle the logistics: Power lines had to be lowered, traffic managed and permits secured.

On moving day, the house began its slow procession from South Street to Main Street, then up Main past Second National Bank, onto Mahoning Avenue, and finally to Monroe Street. The moving company’s crew rode on the roof, a sight McFarland says he watched with admiration but not participation.

“People from the moving company were on the roof, not Jim,” he noted with a

Laugh.

His favorite memory, though, comes from the stretch past Second National Bank. The loan department took photos of the house outside the bank. McFarland said, “They were going to send the photo with a ‘past due’ notice, joking that they do repo houses.”

And remarkably, the move went smoothly. How smoothly? Jay Hickman, one of the live-in curators at the time (along with her husband, Warren Hickman), had placed a roll of paper towels standing upright on a formica table inside the house. When the house came to rest at its new location, the paper towels were still standing.

However, not everything went perfectly after the wheels stopped turning. About three weeks after the move, one of the ceilings caved in. Fortunately, the foundation and basement had already been dug and poured before the house arrived, so the structure was secure. Still, the house remained closed for nearly a year.

Volunteers stepped up. Marti Gilbert and her husband went inside and painted the entire house. Chris Klingimer handled interior construction. They also created new exhibits downstairs. The Hickmans moved into a house at the back of the property.

It’s worth noting that on South Street, the museum had only used the first floor. The move gave the historical society a chance to fully utilize the building. Looking back, Jim McFarland is proud of what the historical society accomplished that June day. They didn’t have much money. But they had a house worth saving, and the will to move Heaven and Earth, or at least a very old building, to protect it.