The little house at 601 W. Benton St. in Wapakoneta has always been hallowed ground for space nerds — it’s where a kid named Neil Armstrong built model planes in the dining room, tested them in a wind tunnel he rigged up in the basement, and dreamed his way toward the Moon. Now, thanks to a retired fighter pilot who was 9 years old when he watched Armstrong walk on the Moon in 1969, that house is officially saved.

Ken Schreiber, a Dayton-raised former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot who later flew for American Airlines, donated $400,000 to the Auglaize County Historical Society so it could buy Armstrong’s boyhood home. The two-story house hit the market in August — its first listing in nearly 40 years — and Schreiber stepped in when nobody else did. He first asked friends to chip in, then decided to cover the entire $400,000 himself. The sale was finalized Monday, Oct. 19.

The home was owned since 1988 by Karen Mikesell, a retired history teacher who kept it preserved “just like the Armstrongs had it.” Over the years she hosted nine astronauts — including Buzz Aldrin, who stood in Armstrong’s old bedroom a couple of years after Armstrong’s 2012 death and, Mikesell recalled, “the tears just streamed down his cheeks.”

The historical society now plans to restore the home to its 1940s appearance and open it for its first-ever public tours by 2030, the 100th anniversary of Armstrong’s birth. The house has never been open to the public, though it’s long been a pilgrimage stop for visitors to the nearby Armstrong Air and Space Museum.

For Ohioans, this one’s personal: the kid from Wapakoneta who left footprints on the Moon — and the kid from Dayton who watched him do it and decided, 57 years later, to return the favor.

Photo: NASA (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons. Sources: PEOPLE · Associated Press