Our county fair building, named for Bob Hodgson, was built in 1967 to house and protect the Log Cabin, a replica of the one presented by John Oleson, Pioneer soldier and citizen of Waseca County, as his memorial to the Waseca County Historical Society. This cabin was originally built in 1862 on a farm in New Richland Township. Early artifact donations were exhibited in space in the basement of the courthouse. In 1940, John Oleson, sole surviving Civil War veteran in Wase-ca County, donated original hand-hewn logs from a cabin on his property and the A.F. Sponberg family of Otisco Township also donated original hand-hewn logs from a cabin that was built in 1858 by Samuel Anderson, a very early Waseca County settler. The cabins were dismantled and transported to the courthouse grounds where the best of the logs were
