This House Is Your House

The London House

Vacant for more than three decades, the unassuming lot in Okemah, OK was once the boyhood home of one of modern music’s greatest and most influential legends… Woody Guthrie.

In 1913, when Woody was one year old, the Guthrie family moved to the "London House," a two-story, six-room structure that stood on a hill at the southwest corner of S. 1st Street and W. Birch Street in Okemah, OK.  The house sat high on the weedy hillside overlooking the Fort Smith and Western depot at the foot of Columbia Street.

This house, which was demolished in 1980 and on which presently stands a carved tree memorial to Woody, is often misidentified as his birthplace. In Guthrie’s own words, the home consisted of “a dank stone floor, wooden second floor, back porch overlooks rolling farm land at the edge of town”.

When the home was demolished in 1980, the wood was taken down piece by piece and stored in a lot across town.

Now, more than a century after Woody was born, the Woody Guthrie Home Reconstruction Project has been created. The campaign is design with the single purpose of rebuilding Woody Guthrie’s childhood home to a factually and historically accurate state. All funds raised during this campaign will be used in the reconstruction, restoration, and preservation of the London House.