North Cascades

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN THE NORTH CASCADES

CORRIDORS OF SETTLEMENT: STEHEKIN RIVER

Courtney

Filing a claim in 1918 for only 53 acres, Hugh Courtney, his wife Mamie, and their five children settled into their new home shortly after. When USFS Ranger Blankenship visited the property in 1919, he noted many improvements to the old McComb place. Courtney had added a new floor, windows, and door to the "roughly made but substantial" log cabin, and was working on clearing and plowing the land for a garden. Within four years Courtney had added a rough lumber addition (16' x 16') to the cabin enlarging it to two rooms for his growing family. The house contained a range, kitchen and dining tables, four beds, a phonograph, and various other pieces of furniture. Courtney also built a cellar, barn, and hay shed on the homestead. [247]

As the Courtney children grew up, they left home, married, and moved elsewhere in the valley. Hugh and Mamie continued to live in the old cabin until 1950 when son Curtice acquired the property. Curt did not live in the old cabin but next door, in a larger, modern house. From then on, the log cabin was used as a rental. Eventually Curt subdivided the homestead, selling off parcels, and in 1971 he sold the land and his family's cabin to the National Park Service. [248]

Today, the old cabin is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as an example of homesteading efforts in the Stehekin valley. Despite this recognition, the cabin barely stands, extremely deteriorated by the elements. Ironically, it has outlived the newer Courtney house next door, which burned to the ground, leaving only a stone fireplace intact. The wood frame additions to the cabin were dilapidated and were removed by the NPS in the 1970s, and the root cellar was closed as a safety measure. But the cabin remains, tangible evidence of the way many early settlers first lived in the Stehekin valley. A recent field-check of the older McComb cabin (located to the north) revealed only bare traces of the cabin's foundation logs. These are found on the McConnell property today.