National Park Service:Park Structures and Facilities (Cabins)

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Park Structures and Facilties

CABINS

AMONG BUILDINGS THAT HAVE COME to be regarded as on occasion justified within our present conception of a natural park, the cabin alone has the favorable advantage of long familiarity to us in woodland and meadow. So accustomed have we become to the survivals of frontier cabins that dot the countryside that we have grown to look upon them as almost indigenous to a natural setting. Of all park structures, those cabins which echo the pioneer theme in their outward appearance, whether constructed of logs, shakes or native stone, tend to jar us least with any feeling that they are unwelcome. The fact that park cabins are usually erected in colonies or groups—which frontier cabins as a rule were not—destroys the feeling of almost complete fitness that is produced by a single primitive cabin. The further fact that the true cost of such structures is usually much higher than their purpose or the prospective income from them would justify imposes upon the designer the necessity of availing himself of cheaper and more easily handled materials, and of using them the best way he can. Hence these groups are something of a dissonance in parks, acceptable only when their obtrusiveness is minimized insofar as possible.

When occupied, the cabin becomes in effect private property, serving an infinitesimal portion of the park-using public. In consequence, if the cabin on public lands is to justify itself it is essential that it at least pay its way during its lifetime, and that charges for its use should bear a logical relationship to its true cost. Any evaluation of that cost which fails to assign a reasonable value to materials acquired on the site or to all labor, however compensated, would be faulty.

A tendency frequently observed in connection with cabin groups is to spread the effects of their presence over a needlessly large area, on the assumption that the occupants of each are entitled to complete seclusion. In groups composed of the simplest cabin types this either compels a multiplication of toilet installations or renders the use of central facilities so difficult that the cabin occupant, particularly after dark, will frequently not go to the required trouble, with consequent development of unpleasant and unsanitary conditions. It also compels establishment of additional water outlets—one more item of cost.

Even in the case of cabin groups equipped with toilets and with running water, wide separation means added road construction to make them accessible and greatly increased costs of water distribution and sewage disposal. After all it seems fair to assume that where cabins are erected in parks, their purpose is to facilitate enjoyment of the park itself and that complete seclusion during the hours when they are occupied is not the supremely important goal it is so frequently assumed to be.

Often overlooked, but certainly the primary objective in providing cabins in public parks, should be adjustment of cost and facilities to the income range of the using public. There ought to be just as sincere effort to make habitable vacation shelter available to the patron of very limited means as there now exists an enthusiasm to supply the more ample facilities which the higher income brackets can afford and demand. Reasonable assumption of a range of rentals suggests the logic of three basic types of vacation cabins. A large proportion may well provide accommodations for five persons as the average American family group.

The simplest type of cabin, the "Student" or "Tourist" class (to initiate the figure of the passenger liner), must seek to bring the required minimum of space need in shelter within a most rigid limitation of cost, which must bear an arithmetical relation to the very limited rent the humble park user can afford to pay. This problem will tax the ingenuity of the ablest designer capable and desirous of producing a nice relationship between traditional charm and reasoned practicability. Of necessity such a cabin must be a very simple affair, affording merely the most compact of sleeping accommodations and small living space. In many localities an open or screened porch will be desirable or necessary. But required economy will compel the omission of toilet and bathing facilities, and even fireplace and kitchen that is more than mere cabinet, alcove or closet, from this simplest type of cabin. Group toilet and bathing facilities, and provision of very limited and compact kitchen equipment will naturally reduce the cabin unit cost, as compared with that of cabin groups in which toilet, bathing and more complete cooking facilities are integral parts of each cabin. A possible alternative for the very modest kitchen allowable within the simplest cabin is an outdoor camp stove, preferably with sheltering roof. If strategically located the camp stove may be a multiple unit and the kitchen shelter thus made to serve several cabins. Such is the prospectus for recreational or vacational cabin housing within the normal budget range of the great majority, and possible then, it should be borne in mind, for brief periods only and by dint of the most careful economy on the part of the family unit.

A narrowing field of potential users results when more ample space and added facilities, naturally accompanied by mounting costs and proportionately higher rental charges, are offered in "Second Cabin Class." Cabins of this type contain two rooms and a kitchenette. Both rooms should provide for sleeping. The kitchenette will tend to be something more than the simpler cabin type provides. A fireplace is an allowable feature, since the larger cabin will probably have a longer season of use. In the absence of a central recreation building as a gathering place, the cabin unit is forced to a greater self-sufficiency. Toilet and bath facilities within this class of cabin, while certainly to be desired, are hardly to be encouraged, in the face of the cost of these accessories.

The distinguishing features of cabins of the next group, the "First Cabin Class," are toilet and bath facilities, along with perhaps added spaciousness and greater privacy in sleeping quarters. Arbitrary pronouncement of limitations in space and facilities for these cabins is considered beyond the province of this general discussion.

When examples of the "First Cabin Class" give hint of elaboration to the point of becoming "Cabins de Luxe" or "Royal Suites" their appropriateness within natural parks will be challenged by many and defended by a few. Certainly such cabins are only justifiable if the vacancy ratio is negligible.

At the lack of spread in cabin facilities and rentals observable in many parks, just criticism can be leveled. It would seem not only to be better park planning, but better business planning, to have accommodations to offer over a wide price range and bearing some logical ratio to the wide income range that prevails among park patrons. It might be pointed out as an abuse of democratic principles if the benefits of park areas are withdrawn from availability to the many to the selfish enjoyment of the few. An abundant provision of cabins such as only the few can afford, and a blind, or calloused, disregard of the budget limits of the vast majority, are not social arithmetic.

It is not argued that the several "classes" of cabins must rub elbows in the park area as a condition of serving with equality the patrons of different social or financial strata. On the contrary, this is something to be rigidly avoided in layout. There is less emphasis on social differences and therefore less dissatisfaction for all concerned in a discreet grouping of cabins of each type somewhat to themselves.

While many cabins have been built as a single room large enough to provide sleeping accommodations for an average family, it is desirable even in such simple cabins to afford dressing space privacy by means of partitions, or curtains on poles, around one or more of the bed locations. Furthermore, the potential tenants are not always a family group, and failure to provide some measure of privacy results in a narrowing down of the tenant field.

Among space-saving possibilities to be carefully weighed by cabin designers with praiseworthy urge to provide the utmost for the cabin dollar, a wide opening between the enclosed living space and the screened porch is to be especially recommended. Such an opening about eight feet wide, and framing three- or four-fold, or sliding, doors, by throwing together the limited space allotments of living space and porch, makes for a spaciousness much desired on occasion.

Something on the subject of chimneys cries to be heard, and since chimneys have no separate entity in these discussions, their case must be presented and pressed by cabins, as "next friend."

In the "what-not" or "mission" period of the discredited past, some individualist seems to have been possessed of a grim determination and an hypnotic ability to implant his school of debased thought in chimneys for log cabins through the length and breadth of the land. It must have been the life-long fixation of one crusading apostle. Nothing else will account for such far-flung and ardent faith in the sole and supreme appropriateness of boulder masonry for this purpose. The unfortunate circumstance is further aggravated by a quaint conviction that the less structural in appearance, the less evident the bonding mortar, and the less apparent any reliance on physical laws for stability, the happier and more creditable the accomplishment. Need it be more than pointed out that from time immemorial good stonework has always been that stonework which appears incapable of toppling even if all mortar were to be magically removed? It is highly possible that recurrently through history there have been revolutionary viewpoints determined to go counter to what probably seemed at the moment just trite and old-fashioned in masonry technique. This is mere speculation, of course, because somehow the evidence of such revolutionary experimentation, except that of the cited sponsor of "peanut brittle" or "grape cluster" chimney techniques for log cabins, has not survived the ravages of time to our day. It is indeed regrettable that this non-survival went unnoted by the most recent proponent, whose disciples, over the years, might have been spared many chimney replacements which, if not necessitated by actual collapse, then certainly blasted to ruin by the trumpets of good taste. As from time to time these reconstructions must be made, it is hoped that the reconstructors will appraise the chimney survivals of the American pioneer, and if they are led to offend with globular masonry no more often than did he, a weird ghost will have been laid.

When the timber resources of the American frontier seemed limitless, it was usual to lay the starting logs of a cabin directly on the ground, without supporting stone foundations. When after a time the logs in contact with the earth had rotted to a point where the cabin commenced to list and sag, another cabin was built and the earlier one abandoned. This, it seems, in the economy of the frontier, was more reasonable than to have provided a foundation under the earlier cabin. Regardless of the pious respect a log cabin builder of the present must have for the traditions of the past, the changed economy of our day demands that his cabin be preserved against deterioration by the use of masonry or concrete supporting walls or posts that extend well above grade.

Plate S-1 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate S-2 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate S-3 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate S-4 (click on image for a PDF version)

Cabin, Willard Brook State Forest, Massachusetts

This example succeeds in capturing the spirit of the early log cabin in greater degree than most present day log structures, due to simplicity of line and to unmannered directness. Although it is comparatively small in size, its equipment of double deck bunks will accommodate a maximum of eight occupants. The chimney has satisfying masonry and good silhouette and the log work pleasing variety of size. The superimposing of a shed roof of a porch upon the main cabin roof is always an awkward solution, but here has a certain picturesqueness.

Plate S-5 (click on image for a PDF version)

Willard Brook State Forest, Massachusetts

Cabin, Westmoreland State Park, Virginia

Almost idyllic in spirit and setting, this vacation cabin can also claim a plan conveniently arranged to accommodate four persons, without either waste or painful economy of space. The quality of the log work, the texture of the shingled roof, are commended to attention as important factors in the favorable reaction this cabin inspires.

Plate S-6 (click on image for a PDF version)

Westmoreland State Park, Virginia

Cabin, Douthat State Park, Virginia

A fine example of vacation cabin, content to follow externally the simple log prototypes of the Frontier Era without apparent aspiration to be bigger and better and gaudier. Inside it slyly incorporates a modern bathroom just to prove that it is not the venerable relic it appears. The squared logs with hewn surfaces and the simple fenestration contribute greatly to the look of authenticity. There is threat of accelerated deterioration in every log structure in which the spacing of the logs requires such wide chinking.

Plate S-7 (click on image for a PDF version)

Douthat State Park, Virginia

Cabin, Staunton River State Park, Virginia

The exterior treatment of this cabin is typical of a number of park cabin groups in the Old Dominion—walls of wide boards and squared battens, rough-sawed siding in the gables, and steep roofs. Assuming from the plan that sleeping accommodations in the living room are possible, the "bedding-down" capacity of the cabin is doubtless greater than the one bedroom would indicate.

Plate S-8 (click on image for a PDF version)

Staunton River State Park, Virginia

One Room Cabin, Itasca State Park, Minnesota

Only the sworn statement of one who is well informed, to the effect that this cabin was built from wind-falls and not cut timber, permits conservationists to show this cabin here. Almost humorous in its scale, it is far from that as a reminder of magnificent forests all but extinct. As a relic of the days when trees were trees, this cabin can inspire us to firm resolution to permit them to be so again in the long term future. Somewhere between the scale of this log work and the spindling scale of the majority of present day log structures is the happy and satisfying medium that is too infrequently seen. The random informality of the axe-hewn log ends contributes greatly to the naive charm of this little building.

Plate S-9 (click on image for a PDF version)

Itasca State Park, Minnesota

Cabins, Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada

These overnight cabins are built of rock in the native structural tradition. The limited space allotment suggests that much time is spent out of doors. There are diverse fireplaces for cool evenings and restricted windows against daytime heat to meet climatic conditions of the locality.

Plate S-10 (click on image for a PDF version)

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada

Cabins, Cumberland Falls State Park, Kentucky

Opposite are shown plans typical of cabins developed in this park. There is hint of spaciousness in some of these that, while not undesirable, is perhaps not essential for over-night or brief vacation occupancy, nor so much in demand as more compact and therefore less expensive accommodation. Above are shown a type C cabin (left) and a type A (right). To the right of this caption is pictured a type D cabin.

Plate S-11 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate S-12 (click on image for a PDF version)

Cumberland Falls State Park, Kentucky

Cabins, Bastrop State Park, Texas

Plans of three of the cabins built at this park are shown on the opposite page. Surrounding this caption are exterior and interior views. Low and sprawling, the structures seem appropriate to the character of the region in which they occur. Because some of the cabins have been built from reversed plans for added variety, the illustrations shown are not always readily assignable to the plans presented.

Plate S-13 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate S-14 (click on image for a PDF version)

Bastrop State Park, Texas

Plate S-15 (click on image for a PDF version)

Restorations of Frontier Cabins, Spring Mill State Park, Illinois

In the growth and development of our natural park areas, the educational, recreational and interest values of the past, except in scattered instances, have been neglected. New Salem State Park, Illinois, wherein is reconstructed the vanished frontier village in which Lincoln wooed Ann Rutledge, is a notable exception. Above on this page are shown log structures restored, reconstructed, and rebuilt as units of this praiseworthy undertaking. These accurately portray the methods and manners of a century ago as no other medium could. An early log cabin or mill existing within park boundaries is a feature to be safeguarded and preserved.

Spring Mill State Park, Illinois

Restorations of Frontier Cabins, New Salem State Park, Indiana

Indiana's Spring Mill State Park exists for a double purpose—the preservation of natural beauty and of a backwoods village that grew up around a stone mill. By intelligent and painstaking research and effort the mill and dependencies have been restored to operating condition, and many of the log buildings that once comprised the village live again. Below on this page are shown two of these cabin restorations. Spring Mill is one of the high spots in park development, stressing as it does an objective too infrequently pursued. The well-considered restoration of an ancient mill, iron furnace or tavern is a legitimate project in a park.

New Salem State Park, Indiana

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Last Updated: 5-Dec-2011