148 Main Street
Glen Carbon, ILlinois
618-288-7271

Located about one mile southwest of modern Glen Carbon at the point where Judy's Creek emerges from the bluffs into the American Bottoms was the Goshen Settlement, an early American pioneer settlement. In 1799, David Bagley, a Virginia Baptist minister passed through the area and determined that it was a land of such expanse and luxuriant vegetation that he compared it to the Biblical Land of Goshen. References to this Land of Goshen have persisted since that time. In 1801, Colonel Samuel Judy received a military grant of 100 acres near the base of the bluffs, just north of Judy's Creek, and became the first permanent European settler of Madison County. The area became known as the Goshen Settlement although its boundaries were never clearly outlined.

William Yanda and his wife Anna Zeola immigrated from Bohemia, Austria to the Land of Goshen area in the early 1850s. Yanda was a blacksmith and is believed to have built the Yanda Log Cabin in 1853. William and Anna raised ten children in the cabin. Frank, their oldest son also became a blacksmith. He practiced his craft in other towns in the area and eventually moved back to the “home place” in 1882 with his wife Anna Benda. Frank and Anna raised eleven children in the cabin. Frank sold the cabin to his son Frank Jr. (one of the early mayors of the Village of Glen Carbon.

By the 1980s the cabin had gone through some modernizations and it was thought to be just an ordinary house. When the house was going to be used as a practice burn by the Village fire department the vinyl siding was removed and the historic log cabin was discovered underneath. All plans of burning it were stopped and Glen Carbon purchased the lot and the cabin in 1989. Renovation work began in the same year and was concluded just in time for the Village’s Centennial Celebration in June 1992. The cabin now serves as both a satellite addition of the Glen Carbon Heritage Museum to our museum and as a reminder of the Land of Goshen era.

Visiting the Yanda Log Cabin
Fourth Saturday of each Month May - October: 10 am - 2 pm.
A note on accessibility: Although the Yanda Log Cabin doesn't meet the strict definitions of being barrier free there is a parking area level with the Yanda Log Cabin and the picnic facilities. There are only a few steps to negotiate to get into the Yanda Log Cabin itself. About 10 yards of level mown grass needs to be crossed to reach the picnic facilities.
Free, donations welcome