After a 2 ½-year closure for a $1 million renovation, the Boyhood Home of Wyatt Earp has re-opened in Pella. Executive Director of Pella Historical Society and Museums Valerie Van Kooten says the newly interpreted space tells the story of the 14 years the Nicholas Earp family lived in Pella, and the three years (1861-1864) that they lived in this particular space. It then follows the legendary lawman as he travels West.

“To have the original house in the original location is a real boon,” says Van Kooten, Executive Director of Pella Historical Society and Museums, where the Earp House resides in the Historical Village. “So much of Wyatt’s later lift has been documented, but we are the only ones who can tell the story of how a Scots-Irish family lived in a small Dutch community in the 1850s and ‘60s.”

The house, officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the “Van Spanckeren Row Houses,” was built around 1850 and served as apartments and businesses. The Earp family lived in an apartment on the east side of the house. It remained apartments until the 1960s, when the house was purchased by Pella Historical and became the first building in its now 20-building Historical Village.

The white paint was removed to bring the building back to its red brick exterior. The interior was completely re-plastered; period- appropriate windows and doors were replaced. An interactive display has been installed that uses audio pods to tell Wyatt’s story.

The renovation was part of the Society’s $2.5 million Forging Our Future campaign that raised funds not only for the Earp House, but also to completely renovate the founder of
Pella’s home, built by Hendrik Peter Scholte for his wife, Maria, in 1847-’48. That home stands on the north side of the square in downtown Pella.