EVENTS

Log Cabin Day & Ice Cream Social 
New Date! Sunday, August 10, 2025 | 1:00-5:00pm

The historic 140-year-old Log Cabin will be the shining star at a free, family-friendly festival filled with music, art, history, a children’s hat and bonnet parade and contest, and free ice cream in Detroit’s Palmer Park. The celebration on is presented by People for Palmer Park and features blues, jazz, folk and roots music with the Roots Journey ensemble, the Metropolitan Detroit Square & Round Dancers, the Cre8tive Circle artists, and fascinations for all ages.
 
“History comes alive on Log Cabin Day,” explains PFPP Events Chair Barbara Barefield. “We are thrilled to present an old-fashioned ice cream social with free Guernsey Dairy ice cream to the first 500, as well as history reenactments with the 102nd USCT Black Civil War History Group and the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War. Gifted artists will exhibit African American quilts, and demonstrate weaving, embroidery, basket-making, spinning, blacksmithing, historic carpentry, and much more. Log Cabin Day is always fun, very memorable, and enriching for all ages.”
 
Kids can make hats and bonnets and parade in the Hat and Bonnet contest and fashion show where everyone wins prizes for their creative headwear. Acclaimed Detroit author/cultural icon Marsh Music Philpot will host a “fashion” show of the young hatmakers, Gabriel Craig from the Smith Shop will heat of the fire as he demonstrates the art of black smiths, and artist Michael Daitch will be at his loom weaving and sewing with a hands-on make-and-take workshop for children.
 
The massive Dutch front door of Palmer Park’s log cabin will open wide to celebrate Log Cabin Day, a national holiday honored annually in Palmer Park. Senator Thomas Palmer and his wife Lizzie Merrill Palmer—portrayed by two members of People for Palmer Park (one is a descendent of the Palmer family)—will welcome guests into their magical home. Rustic on the exterior, the interior boasts 33 fully-restored, dazzling stained glass windows, an indoor commode, and other elements of a stately Victorian home of its 1885 era.
 
They are especially excited to show off their newly restored kitchen and “modern” Detroit Jewel Stove, known in the late 1800s as the best stove in the world. A grant from the Michigan Architectural Foundation has enabled People for Palmer (PFPP) to re-create an authentic historic kitchen using the fragmented pieces and precious original stove found in the deteriorating Log Cabin in 2011. Actress/historian Denise Ford, formerly from Greenfield Village, will be the queen of the kitchen in 1800s attire.
 
The Log Cabin has experienced many incarnations—a summer home for the Palmers in the late 1800s, a city-run museum of old-fashioned curiosities through much of the 20th century, and then an abandoned, boarded and neglected home infested with raccoons until about a decade ago when PFPP and the City of Detroit embarked on a mission to restore and rebuild this significant architectural treasure. Designed by renowned architects George D. Mason and Zachariah Rice for the Palmers, the Log Cabin was party central for international dignitaries and friends of the Palmers, as well as local farmers and neighbors, in what then was the countryside outside of pre-auto industry Detroit.
 
In 1893, the Palmers donated land—and soon after gave the cabin—to the City of Detroit with the stipulation that it always remain a park for the enjoyment of all. Log Cabin Day celebrates the rebirth of the cabin and of Palmer Park.

Located between McNichols and 7 Mile Roads and west of Woodward Avenue in Detroit, the Log Cabin is located near the Mounted Police Station at 910 Merrill Plaisance. Free parking can be found nearby on Merrill Plaisance and Woodward Avenue. 

People for Palmer Park’s Log Cabin Day sponsors include City of Detroit Parks & Recreation and Detroit General Services Departments and Guernsey Dairy. 

Log Cabin Day Media Coverage​MORE on the Palmer Park Log Cabin
MORE EVENTS:


LIGHT UP THE CABIN 


LOG CABIN DAY


WINTERFEST


HARVEST FESTIVAL


ARTS & CULTURE


PALMER PARK ART FAIR