A diminished house leaves the family
By the twentieth century, the building no longer had the scale or appearance of Andrew Tribble’s original two-story home. Dudley had reduced it, and later changes concealed portions of the log structure beneath siding and plaster. Eventually the property passed out of the Tribble family.
Nathan Amster’s rescue
Local accounts agree that Nathan Amster acquired and moved the surviving structure, though some older descriptions place the move in the 1970s. In a 2023 interview, Dr. Rechenbach gave the more specific date of 1967. Facebook recollections from Richmond residents also use 1967.
The logs were dismantled and reassembled at 2191 Boonesborough Road. Moving a historic log building changes its relationship to the original land, but in this case it likely saved the surviving fabric from demolition or collapse.
The Boone’s Trading Post years
Amster adapted the structure as Boone’s Trading Post, a tourist-oriented business drawing on the site’s proximity to Fort Boonesborough and the public fascination with Daniel Boone. Dr. Rechenbach has said Amster reshaped the building to resemble a corner blockhouse of the frontier fort.
The trading-post period belongs to the building’s authentic history. It reflects the rise of roadside tourism, heritage attractions and souvenir culture in twentieth-century Kentucky. The building was no longer on the Tribble farm, but it remained a place where local history was interpreted .... sometimes through romanticized frontier imagery.
Returning attention to the parsonage
After years of disuse and deterioration, the Rev. Dr. Rusty Rechenbach acquired the property in 2010. He later recalled that the roof had collapsed. His restoration sought to recover the building’s late-eighteenth-century character and reestablish the Tribble story as its central identity.
The restored parsonage now supports visits, historical presentations, weddings, receptions, performances and seasonal storytelling. Preservation has not frozen the house in time. It has returned the building to public use.
Searching for photographs of the Trading Post
No clearly identified public photograph of the building operating as Boone’s Trading Post has yet surfaced through general web and image searches. Social-media references indicate that older parsonage photographs exist, but their dates and subjects need confirmation.
Help identify this chapter: Former visitors, Amster family members, Richmond residents and collectors may have snapshots, postcards, advertisements, matchbooks or newspaper clippings. Dr. Rechenbach’s research collection, the Richmond Register archive, Eastern Kentucky University Special Collections and local historical groups are the strongest leads for locating an authenticated image.