The Trail System and
Need for Cabins
The backcountry trail system was
originally proposed by Fritiof M. Fryxell in 1929 as an integral part of the
interpretation plan for the newly established Grand Teton National Park. From the beginning, Fryxell and park
administrators envisioned building cabins to support trail construction crews,
for wildlife protective patrols, and to place fire control personnel in remote
areas.
In 1938, GTNP Superintendent Guy
D. Edwards advised the NPS regional director that housing trail crews in tents
was ineffective in “a Park of this nature, which is subject to very heavy
snowfall, periods of heavy rain” and a short tourist season. The superintendent advocated for patrol cabins
to house the trail crews, allowing more time on the trail, enhanced access, and
increased safety. Secondly, cabins were
seen as an absolute necessity to carry out patrols aimed at preventing poaching
of wildlife in the park. During the
1930s, hunters pursued sheep near the western boundary, and trappers sought
marten and beaver in Granite Creek and elsewhere. Edwards wrote that the park was accessible to
trappers coming in from the west side, and “if the area cannot be reached from
the east side by the protection force trapping continues the entire winter.” As late as 1951, the superintendent noted that
“poaching has been carried on all summer in the Berry Creek country and the
pressure of work has prevented patrols in this area.” (Boxes
1053 & 200, NARA). Three patrol cabins built on the western edge
of the valley floor (Moran Bay, Leigh Lake, and Hot Springs cabins) were often
referred to as “snowshoe cabins,” as they were located a winter day’s travel
apart. These cabins may have provided winter
patrols a link to the remote North District and the cabin at Berry Creek.
Berry Creek and Land
Transfers
The Teton Forest Reserve was
established in 1897 by President Grover Cleveland’s executive order,
encompassing the mouth of Berry Creek. Official
jurisdiction of the cabin site, if not its actual use, took a twist when the
Bureau of Reclamation withdrew a parcel at the mouth of Berry Creek on July 10,
1903, in conjunction with construction of the Jackson Lake
dam. Workers floated many logs across Jackson Lake to provide materials used in dam
construction. It remains unclear exactly
when that withdrawal was revoked.
Congress established Grand
Teton National Park
in February 1929. At that time, however,
the park boundaries did not extend as far north as the Owl Creek or Berry Creek
drainages. A 1938 memo from the park
superintendent notes “One other cabin at the north end of the Park belonging to
the Forest Service is used by the Park during the winter” (Box 1053 NARA). In 1943, establishment of the Jackson Hole National
Monument transferred 99,345 acres from Teton National Forest,
including the general area around the Berry Creek cabin. In 1950, the monument was incorporated into Grand Teton National Park (Righter, 1982: 110, 126,
139).
The Lower
Berry Cabin
Although the northwest portion of
GTNP is considered relatively remote and does not see the high levels of
visitation of the South District, from prehistoric times some travelers passing
from Jackson’s Hole into Idaho have traveled westward up Berry Creek. Around 1900, A.J. Berry lived near the mouth
of Berry Creek, which was named for him.
This designation first appearing on a 1899 Grand Teton Quadrangle map. Like a few others in this remote drainage, he
made a living by trapping or mining. If
he built a cabin, it remains unclear what happened to it.
The cabin at Berry Creek today
presents a conundrum in architectural history.
It does not exhibit the classic rustic style employed on some other
cabins in GTNP. Did the US Forest
Service build it? It does not fit
standard USFS cabin plans of the 1920s, yet resembles cabins built before the
New Deal. One of the walls incorporates
a 6-pane window, commonly used on USFS buildings and known as “barn-sash,” yet
another side of the cabin exhibits a 9-pane window, which was not common on
USFS structures. A careful search
through several archives uncovered clues resulting in the following account.
Evidence points to the construction
of a patrol cabin by the U.S. Forest Service in 1910 near the mouth of Berry
Creek. The 1949 GTNP Building Survey
identifies the (first) Berry Creek Patrol Cabin as Building No. 61 (See Figures
1 & 2). It is described as one room,
one story, measuring 8 x 20 feet, 144 square feet (perhaps they did not count
the porch, which in some photographs is fitted with screening material). The building survey claims the cabin was
built in 1910, and remodeled in 1938. Beginning
around 1910, both the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Forest Service began
to string phone lines in the area. A telephone
line was installed connecting up Berry Creek to another cabin further up the
drainage, and perhaps the fire lookout station at “Point A.” This phone line also may have extended from
Berry Creek Cabin eastward across the Snake River
to the highway. Control of fires was a
top priority in forest management, with the prevention of timber trespass closely
following. The Berry Creek Cabin, listed
in some documents as a “fireguard cabin,” facilitated those functions in the
northwest portion of Teton
National Forest (See
Figure 3).
In 1943, management of the cabin
passed from the U.S. Forest Service to the National Park Service, with the
establishment of the Jackson Hole
National Monument. Despite the 1938 repairs, a 1949 building
survey (just before the expansion of Grand Teton NP) described the condition of
the Berry Creek Cabin as “poor.” In
1956, GTNP officials decided to replace the structure. The best available evidence indicates that
the Berry Creek Cabin was moved from the Feuz Ranch on Spread Creek to its
present location. One might wonder if
moving a log cabin was worth the time and energy, but actually buildings of
various sizes in the parks have been moved with good effect, employing various
strategies and methods (see Figure 4).
The Feuz family ranch was one of
the properties involved in the expansion of Grand Teton National Park. Gottfried (“Fred”) Feuz had departed Switzerland
after he was caught poaching a deer. The
penalty was 500 francs, a year in prison, or a promise to permanently
emigrate. After a brief sojourn in Idaho, Fred brought his wife Caroline and two young
daughters over Teton Pass into Jackson Hole,
where he staked a claim on Spread Creek.
The family ran a successful cattle ranch on this site from 1914 to
1953. Fred was an excellent hunter, and
even during the Depression the family had enough to eat. He worked on and off with the Forest Service,
and started guiding hunting clients around Mt. Leidy. The family was not interested in the offers
of the Snake River Land Company to purchase their property. In 1943, the Jackson Hole National
Monument was created by Executive Order. At this time, the family still refused to
sell. Caroline Feuz recalled that
“[finally] we were given a choice of either our property being confiscated, or
trading for other land. The land they
had in mind was bordering the edge of the park near our son Walt’s ranch. So we accepted this offer. The Park Service eventually had all our
buildings and fences removed and burned” (Williams, 2002: 67).
Two sources of information
support the claim that today’s Berry Creek Cabin was moved to its present site
in 1956. The GTNP Superintendent’s monthly
report for July, 1956, stated “A log cabin was erected at the Berry Creek
Ranger Station. Window screens were
constructed at the Johnson residence” (Box 201, NARA). This rather brief description is mentioned
under the category of maintenance/ trails, not plans and construction. No further details were found in attached
budgets and work program listings, or in separate reports of design and
construction filed with monthly reports.
The “Johnson residence” may have referred to the site of today’s University
of Wyoming-National Park Service Research Station (AMK Ranch) near Sargents Bay
on the east side of Jackson Lake, where the Johnson family had maintained a
summer home until 1937 when Alfred and Madeline Berolzheimer bought the
property (Daugherty, 1999: 264).
The best source supporting this narrative
came from the person who organized the dismantling and reassembly of the cabin,
log by log. In 1995, while preparing a
National Register multiple property submission for GTNP, historians interviewed
Doug McClaren, a former North District ranger (See Figure 5). This interview was fortuitous, as he later
passed away. McClaren related how he and
other park employees (most probably from the ranger division and from the trail
crews) disassembled a cabin standing at the Feuz Ranch near Spread Creek. They floated the logs across Jackson Lake and moved them onto or near the
site of the existing cabin, which they tore down. McClaren and his team reassembled the logs
into the structure we see today, measuring about 15 by 13 feet of interior
space. McClaren’s recollection was that
this occurred around 1950. This fits
well with the comment in the 1956 Superintendent’s report regarding
construction of a cabin at lower Berry Creek.
GTNP archives contain a photograph of the Berry Creek Cabin after
construction (See Figure 6). To the side
lie several concrete blocks closely resembling foundation piers found on site
today. McClaren’s account rings
true. Floating logs across Jackson Lake
was not exceptionally difficult; during the 1990s, the cabin at Moran Bay
was renovated using this approach.
Additionally, the timing of moving the cabin fits the history of the
Feuz Ranch, as the parcel was sold to the Jackson Hole Preserve between 1947
and 1949, and the park superintendent reported in 1959 that all buildings had
been removed.
Lower Berry Creek
Patrol Cabin’s Suitability for the National Register
During a 1997 survey of park
structures, Historic Research Associates recommended a reevaluation of the
Berry Cabin when it attained 50 years in service as a National Park Service
administrative site. Since Berry Creek
Cabin was re-constructed on site in 1956, it has functioned in its present
place for 52 years, and therefore is eligible for inclusion on the National
Register based on age, if it meets other thematic criteria (Longfield &
Pritchard, 2008).
Criteria A (Association with
Grand Teton National Park Administration and Development) has provided a
fundamental rationale of significance for listing other GTNP backcountry cabins
on the National Register of Historic Places (including Sweet Grass Ranger
Station, Moran Bay, and Leigh Lake patrol cabins). The Berry Creek Cabin fits
Criteria A very well, because a patrol cabin on this site has proved vital to the
administration of public lands beginning with the creation of Teton National Forest. The lower Berry Creek site has a long period
of function in park administration, since at least 1943 when the Jackson Hole Monument was created by Executive Order. Even before 1943, the Forest Service
evidently allowed National Park Service personnel to use the cabin at Berry
Creek. During the 1950s, the designation
“Ranger Station” appears on some documents, inferring an enhanced
administrative function for the Berry Creek Cabin.
The system of backcountry patrol
cabins has proved essential to resource management at Grand Teton National Park. During the inception of Grand Teton NP,
Superintendent Woodring placed the creation of a trail system at the top of his
list. It is clear that the backcountry
cabins have facilitated the operation of trail crews and rangers as they
constructed and cleared trails. Just as
importantly, the National Park Service faced the same challenges as the U.S.
Forest Service, that is to say how to patrol the administrative boundaries of a
relatively remote area against timber, hunting, grazing, and (later) motorized vehicle
trespass.
The Lower Berry Cabin exemplifies
several aspects of the “Rocky Mountain Cabin” architectural style, a
significant vernacular form originally arising out of practicality, but today
exuding western myth and imagination. As
Jim Bailey pointed out in his wonderful study of architecture in the Bridger-Teton National
Forest, the roots of the style actually came from Finnish
immigrants building cabins on the Great Plains. The Rocky Mountain Cabin style, Bailey noted,
“is distinguished by a square or rectangular single-cell floor plan, horizontal
log construction with square-notched ends, a lack of decoration, a front-facing
gable, a single door offset in the gable end, roof slopes under 45 degrees, a
preference for iron stoves over fireplaces, and the front gable end of the roof
extending an average of 50 percent beyond the cabin’s front gable elevation” (Bailey,
2003: 144-45). The Berry Creek Cabin diverges
from the Rocky Mountain Cabin style mainly in its use of saddle-notched logs.
Ann Hubber and Janene Caywood noted
that vernacular architecture preceded the Rustic style in Grand Teton National Park. Pioneer vernacular was “a practical response
to environmental and economic dictates while formal Rustic architecture
represented the deliberate attempt—usually an architect’s deliberate attempt—to
convey historical images and to meld man-made resources with their wilderness
environment” (Hubber and Caywood, 1997;
See also McClelland; USFS; Wilson). Some cabins in GTNP seem to fit in with the
Rustic style, such as the Ranger’s Station at Jenny Lake,
or the Sweetgrass Ranger Station.
Nestled into its remote setting, the simple patrol cabin at Berry Creek
better fits the vernacular “Rocky Mountain Cabin” style.
The Cabins at Survey Peak,
Moose Basin, and Upper Berry Creek
An intriguing search for the
origins of two small shelter cabins in the northwest part of GTNP revealed that
beginning with trappers and miners, various cabins have been constructed in the
Owl and Berry Creek drainages. Cabin No.
279, the Survey Peak cabin, most probably was located northeast of today’s
Upper Berry cabins, between Survey Peak and Point 8775 (See Figure 8). It was built some time before 1949, when it
appears on a USGS map, and was razed in 1962 after damage caused by heavy snow
loading. The U.S. Forest Service might
have constructed this cabin, as a later USFS map depicted a “F.S. Patrol Cabin”
in this vicinity (See Figure 9).
Backcountry management documents
for GTNP suggest that small (about 14 by 12 feet on the exterior) shelter
cabins were built at Moose Basin and at Upper Berry Creek as part of an elk study
during the early 1960s (See Figure 10).
Local legend has it that Olaus Murie was involved with the construction
of these cabins. Murie worked as a field
biologist for the Bureau of Biological Survey and its successor the Fish and
Wildlife Service from 1920 until 1946. He arrived in Jackson’s Hole in 1927 when he was assigned a
study of the elk herds of the region, during the golden days of
horse-packing. Born in 1889, Olaus was
75 when he died in 1963. It seems
doubtful he would have been constructing shelters in the backcountry, much less
using prefabricated materials, given his clearly expressed opposition to overt
and unnecessary manipulations within the national parks.
So far, we have found no documentary
evidence to support the notion that Olaus Murie constructed cabins in the North
District. This idea may have its origins
in the fact that from 1951 to 1953, Adolph Murie (Olaus’s brother) served as Grand Teton National Park’s biologist, working on (among
other things) elk migration studies.
Park naturalists Howard Stagner and Carl E. Jepson also conducted elk
migration studies during the 1950s, but mostly on the eastern side of Jackson Lake.
In 1959, Neil G. Guse summarized a two year study in the Berry Creek
area, but did not mention any cabins in the high country used in elk migration
studies (See Figure 3).
There is a possibility that these
small cabins (See Figure 10) could have been built as early as the mid-1930s,
when a similar structure was erected on the western shore of Jackson Lake. Building No. 49, the “Hot
Springs” patrol cabin on the west shoreline of Jackson Lake,
was constructed in 1935 and remained standing in 1949. The similarity of the board and batten style
of the exterior walls of the three small cabins at Upper Berry, Moose basin,
and Hot Springs
appears striking.
Logbooks kept at Moose Basin
cabin confirm that materials for improving an existing cabin were flown in on
September 18, 1980, when Ranger Jim Bell reported “a glorious day for Moose Basin. The Army in a Chinook helicopter flew in the
materials to insulate, panel and put in a new floor.” In 1987, the small shelter cabin at Upper Berry was converted to storage purposes when a
handsome new cabin was constructed. Logs
and other construction materials were transported to the site using a
helicopter from Yellowstone, where Al Williams
(of the trail crew) supervised a construction crew from the Student
Conservation Association. In 2005,
rotting sill logs on the new patrol cabin were replaced.
Conclusion
Given its age, its unique history
in the park, its administrative function and facilitation of patrolling the
remote North District, and its fit with the Rocky Mountain Cabin style, it is
time for the Lower Berry Patrol Cabin to join other backcountry patrol cabins of
Grand Teton National Park on the National Historic
Register. More research is required to
unveil the exact origins of the other original cabins in the North District,
located at Moose Basin,
Upper Berry Creek, and Survey
Peak.
Research Sources
Grand Teton National Park Archives.
NARA: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland. Record Group 79, Entries 10 & 11.
Jackson Hole Historical
Society, Jackson, Wyoming.
Bridger-Teton
National Forest Archaeologist’s Office, Jackson,
Wyoming.
Literature Cited
Bailey, Jim. “Lookouts, Latrines, and Lodgepole
Cabins: Administrative Facilities of
Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest, 1904-1955.” (Two Volumes, Forest
Service Report No. BT-02-637), USDA FS Intermountain Region, Bridger-Teton National
Forest, March 2003.
Daugherty, John.
A Place Called Jackson Hole:
The Historic Resource Study of Grand
Teton National Park. Moose, WY: Grand Teton National Park,
1999.
Grand Teton National Park. “Management Plan for the Buildings Listed on
the National Register of Historic Places.”
February, 2000.
Historical
Research Associates. “Draft Historic
Building/Structure Survey Form,” 1997. GTNP Archives.
Hubber, Ann,
and Janene Caywood. “Survey Report of
Selected Historical Cultural Resource Properties Located Within Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming” November 1997. GTNP Archives.
Longfield,
Katherine, and James Pritchard. Nomination
to National Register of Historic Places, Lower Berry
Patrol Cabin, 2008.
McClelland, Linda
Flint. Building the National Parks:
Historic Landscape Design and Construction. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University
Press, 1998.
Nielsen,
Cynthia. Origins: A Guide to the Place
Names of Grand Teton
National Park and the
Surrounding Area. Moose, Wyoming: Grand Teton
Natural History Association, 1988.
Righter, Robert. A
Crucible for Conservation: The Creation
of Grand Teton National Park. Boulder: Colorado
Associated University Press, 1982.
U.S. Forest
Service. “Historic Context Statement,” Part
Two, Architectural History. U.S. Forest
Service, Region 4, 17 April 2003.
Williams, Linda
Feuz. “Feuz Family History.” Jackson Hole Historical Society Acc. # 2003.0121.002,
2002.
Wilson, Richa. “Within a Day’s Ride: Forest Service Administrative Sites in Region
4, 1891-1960.” U.S. Forest Service, June 2004. Online at www.fs.fed.us/r4/publications/pubs/r4_admin_sites_history_evals.pdf.
Further information
Readers can find out more about the cabins, the context of
park history, and a sense of the treasure hunt involved in historical research by
viewing the complete report, available from www.public.iastate.edu/~jpritch/.
Figure 1. The original Berry Creek cabin, Building No.
61. Probably built by the USFS in
1910. GTNP Archives.
Figure 2. 1968 USGS map showing north end of Jackson Lake and the location of the Berry Creek
Patrol Cabin near the mouth of Berry Creek.
GTNP Archives.
Figure 3. A rare clue to the location of the fire
lookout at “Point A,” used by the USFS and later the NPS in fire control
activities, is found in this 1959 map by elk researcher Neil G. Guse, who noted
only the lower Berry Creek cabin. GTNP
Archives.
Figure 4. It was not unheard of for structures to be
moved to a new site. Moving barn from
Gros Ventre Ranger Station to Grand Teton National Park Headquarters, 1955.
GTNP Archives.
Figure 5. Grand
Teton National Park
Rangers George Wagner, Doug McLaren, and John Higgins. GTNP Archives.
Figure 6. (Lower) Berry Creek Cabin after construction,
c. 1956. GTNP Archives.
Figure 7. (Lower) Berry Creek Patrol Cabin in
2007. Photo James Pritchard.
Figure 8. 1949 USGS map showing a structure near the
pass between Survey
Peak and Point 8775. This was probably the Survey Peak Cabin
(Building #279). The map also shows a
structure in Upper Berry Creek, at the trail juncture next to the elevation
7558. This clue indicates that the small
cabin may well predate the commonly assumed early 1960s. GTNP Archives.
Figure 9. This Forest Service map (curiously dated
1956) depicts a “F.S. Patrol Cabin” in Upper Berry Creek, as well as a phone
line between the patrol cabins.
Figure 10. Moose
Basin Patrol Cabin, July
2008. Photo James Pritchard.