Moon Block

Willa Cather renames Red Cloud again and again to establish settings for her various novels and short stories. In her fiction, Red Cloud becomes Black Hawk, Sweet Water, Hanover, Frankfort, and the list goes on. As a result, a certain amount of imagination, and maybe even a sprinkling of magic, has attached itself to this famous small town on the Nebraska Prairie. Adding to the magic is the Moon Block, located next to the restored 1885 Red Cloud Opera House. Moon Block . . . the name itself tempts one’s imagination to lift the little town right off the prairie and leave it hovering just beneath the moon—anyway the name has always struck me in just that way, though I don’t know that Cather would have carried it quite that far.

However, though the name sounds romantic enough and Cather certainly makes reference to it in her writings, any association with magic is soon dispelled when one learns that the name is derived from a man by the name of John Moon who named his building after himself. Moon built the Moon Block in 1886, just three years after Willa Cather and her family moved to Red Cloud. Cather would have been about thirteen when the structure was completed; and since the Moon Block takes up a good portion of one block on the west side of Webster Street, its construction would have caused some excitement in the burgeoning small town. The Moon Block held both offices and storefronts early on. Thus, it is in the completed Moon Block structure that Cather would have visited the office of Dr. McKeeby who would become Dr. Archie in The Song of the Lark, for example.




Located just to the north of the restored 1885 Red Cloud Opera House, today the Moon Block stands for the most part unnoticed—certainly undistinguished from the other store fronts located on this main thoroughfare. The Moon Block sports five business bays on the street level, three of which house the Red Cloud Hardware Store which has been in continuous existence since 1885, first physically beneath the historic Red Cloud Opera House itself and later moved to the Moon Block. The other two bays are empty at this time.

Overall, the two-story conglomerate is not in the best shape at this time, but this situation is about to change. The Moon Block is scheduled for renovation starting in this decade. The Cather Foundation has been the recipient of recent Congressional funding plus private contributions that now total over one million dollars, which represents approximately one-fourth of the necessary funding to restore the historic site. The main goal of the project is to create much needed archival space on the second level, but the restoration is essential, in part, because it shares a common wall with the newly restored Opera House. Obviously the structural problems of the Moon Block have become a concern.


Once the Moon Block is restored, the building offers many advantages to the Cather Foundation and many possibilities for economic development in Red Cloud. Because the Moon Block does share a common wall with the Opera House, the stage of the Opera House can be expanded on the north side and a green room added as well as dressing rooms. A freight elevator to the second floor will alleviate the problems of transporting sets and other stage materials to the second floor auditorium. The Red Cloud Hardware Store will be renovated, the Cather Foundation Bookstore expanded, and there will still be room for another business on the street level. Potential loft apartments in the second story have attracted considerable interest of Red Cloud area residents looking for good quality housing.

For the Cather Foundation, though, the planned archive offers a final solution to preserving its many precious Cather-related artifacts. A large section of the upper level is designated for the archive where internal light and climate can be effectively managed.

The name Moon Block might sound like it comes from someone’s exotic dream, but it is a definite structure identifiable in time and space. The real dream that so many hold is to make it come alive as a functioning part of the community of Red Cloud and, at the same time, save a national designed historic site that will become a repository for historic treasures important to our national literary heritage. If you want to learn more about how you can help this project become a reality, contact the Cather Foundation online at http://www.willacather.org/ or call toll free at 1-866-731-7304.