Guitar auction benefits rebuilding Guthrie’s home

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — At least two custom-made Gibson guitars crafted with wood salvaged from folk legend Woody Guthrie’s childhood home are scheduled to be auctioned off to the public.

Bidding begins Thursday on eBay and all proceeds will go toward rebuilding the 1860s-era property in Okemah. The $600,000 project is expected to be completed in July.

Eight guitars were made from the wood. The organizers of the Woody Guthrie Home Reconstruction Project haven’t decided whether to offer the remaining six to the public or to private collectors, including historians and famous musicians who have inquired about them.

The auction comes two weeks before the May 15 groundbreaking at the site where the singer’s boyhood London House stood before authorities in the late 1970s ordered it be torn down because it was so rundown.