Mansfield founder Ralph S. Man built this home for his family between the years ca. 1865-1870. The oldest known building in Mansfield, it stands as an important local landmark. Over a five-year period, Man enlarged and remodeled the home from a one-room frontier log house to a comfortable upper middle-class residence.
Originally, the house only consisted of a one-room log house, built ca. 1865. In ca. 1867, Man built a second, brick addition on the east side of the cabin containing a parlor and a dining room. An open dogtrot or breezeway ran between the two portions of the house. Around 1870, the breezeway was enclosed when Man added a second story to the house to accommodate three bedrooms. The final addition to the house came in 1930 when the porch on the rear of the house was enclosed to create a service porch and bathroom.
