Heslin House Museum & Fairview City Jail

Called their “house in town” by Edward Eugene “Edd” and Helen “Maude” Heslin, ECHO’s museum has had an interesting life over its 123 years, thus far. From its initial building as a boarding house, to a family home, and now a historical society headquarters, these walls have seen many changes.

Much of the house’s history has yet to be researched, but what we do know has come to us by way of family lore, a book called “On Duck Lane” by Helen Guyton Rees, and the memories of ECHO volunteers who reconstructed the home, many of whom grew up in the area.

As the stories go, the home was originally purposed to be a rooming house to service the train depot, only a block away. Its builder, a member of the larger Heslin clan, however, could not afford the price of the construction lumber, at the end. (The home also lost out to a much closer hotel and additional boarding home, built around the same time.) To make good on their debt, they sold the home to the lumber’s owner, John Patrick Heslin (J.P.).