LAKE CHELAN

National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Lake Chelan National Recreation Area Washington

The High Bridge Ranger Station Historic District is located in Chelan County, within Congressional District 4. The district is sited on a terrace above the intersection of the Stehekin River and Agnes Creek in the Lake Chelan National Recreation. The High Bridge Ranger Station was built by the United States Forest Service (USFS) and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its cultural significance.

The historic district has both pre-contact and historic age components and consists of a main residence, shop/garage, outhouse, barn, corral and associated landscape features. The site is currently used for several purposes related to visitor and NPS staff needs. The site is sometimes used for park housing in summer, and in winter as a search and rescue cache. When needed, the corral is used for holding stock overnight and for other temporary needs. The shop/garage is used to store fire wood and miscellaneous maintenance tools. An area between the road and the river is used for vehicle parking not only for day use visitors, but also for local residents and longer term hikers and backpackers. This area is also used as a drop-off and pick-up point for shuttle busses. The historic district is a scenic destination recommended by local hoteliers for their guests and for recreational tour groups who are served lunch before returning to Stehekin Landing. It appears that all of the above uses, separately and cumulatively, contribute to the deterioration of soils and native vegetation, resulting in loss of integrity of pre-contact and historic age cultural components. The need to adopt management procedures that will address these adverse impacts provides the impetus for the development of this management plan.

As a well-defined historic district and cultural landscape, the High Bridge Ranger Station Historic District is significant for its association with federal management of public lands in the North Cascades, which originated in 1897 (USFS administration commenced in 1905), and as the only remaining example of an unaltered, USFS-designed complex within the North Cascades National Park Service Complex (Lake Chelan GMP, 1995). USFS structures at High Bridge, though restrained in architectural details and ornament, reflect architectural principles based on a rustic architecture theme. Basic tenets of the style resulted in structures blending in with, and not intruding upon, their surroundings; building colors were primarily earth tones such as warm browns or tans in order to be in harmony with the setting; materials reflected the forested environment and wood was used without exception. The High Bridge Ranger Station Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 2, 1989.

The guiding management philosophy is to preserve the character defining features of this unique resource while allowing compatible use through rehabilitation as noted in the table below. The professional standards that are most compatible with this management philosophy are described in both The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties with Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes (Birnbaum, C. A. and C. C. Peters, 1996), and The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation and Illustrated Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings (Morton III, W. B., G. L. Hume, K. D. Weeks, H. W. Jandl, 1992) and codified in the Department of the Interior's regulations 36 CFR 67. Preservation standards acknowledge the need to alter or add to a cultural landscape to meet continuing or new uses while retaining the landscape's historic character and meeting all responsibilities described in the National Historic Preservation Act (as amended) (NHPA) and 36 CFR Part 800 Regulations.

Arguably the greatest threat to the integrity of the historic district is the number of vehicles and people that converge on the site on a daily basis during the summer months. The maneuvering of large and small vehicles surrounded by pedestrians in an extremely confined space with sharp boundaries poses not only a health and safety threat, but also a significant threat to natural and cultural resources and the visitor experience. The management actions proposed in this plan assist in mitigating these adverse impacts.

As applied to the management elements of the historic district, rehabilitation will establish general, long-term objectives for each of the units:

Interpretation of the historic district will continue to be primarily through presentation of interpretive panels. The purposes of the interpretive panels are to communicate to today's visitors why the site has both pre-contact and historic age significance, and how they can help in the preservation of significant sites.

As long term management policies, each general objective has been selected in consideration of a number of factors, including, but not limited to: NPS guidelines and regulations, the 1995 Lake Chelan NRA GMP, input from local and regional communities, and professional cultural resource advisors.

The general objective for each management element identifies a number of specific short term rehabilitative objectives to be achieved in the first five years of operation under this management plan. Identification of the specific rehabilitative objectives relies on identification of resource needs, the time critical nature of the needs, and consideration of projected near term staffing and fiscal resources.

A written categorical exclusion will accompany the approved management plan.