North Cascades

STEWARDSHIP OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN:
GOVERNMENT IN THE NORTH CASCADES

UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE ERA

Guard Stations: Stehekin District
McGregor Flats - Bullion Flats - High Bridge - Bridge Creek

View of High Bridge Guard Station, February 1935
Garage to right, residence in center. Note building shell to left of residence.
(FARC-RG 95-Portland)

Along with the two primary district ranger stations, the forest service had an additional support system comprised of smaller guard stations. These stations were often built with an eye toward permanence and were strategically sited along important communication and travel routes within the forest. In most cases these sites were manned seasonally or used as way stations or base camps for work operations deep in the backcountry.

In the Stehekin District there were four of these guard stations established over the course of many years, varying in degrees of administrative importance.

Upvalley from Lake Chelan, McGregor Flats Ranger Station, just beyond Rainbow Falls, was reserved as an administrative site and ranger station. Shown on a 1922 Washington National Forest Map as a ranger station, by 1926 it had been demoted to an administrative site. [29] Six years later the site was still reserved for USFS use though it is uncertain whether structures were ever constructed on the 10.94 acres. [30]

Bullion Flats Ranger Station was established just downvalley from present-day High Bridge. Located in the vicinity of Coon Lake along the old wagon road, this site had a post office for miners in the early years of the twentieth century. [31] By 1913 it had become an official USFS station. [32] By 1926, however, the station had been officially eliminated and the site merely held for administrative purposes. [33] The remnants of an old log cabin west of the NPS Bullion Campground may be the remains of the miner Bullion's cabin or the ranger station itself, never torn down but left to deteriorate. [34]

Approximately ten miles from present-day Stehekin Landing, near the point where Agnes Creek joins the Stehekin River, the USFS selected a flat as the site for a new ranger station. High Bridge Ranger Station was built ca. 1933-34 for use as a backcountry base for USFS employees. Used primarily during the summer months when fire and trail crews scoured the high country, the well-defined site had a 3-room residence, a shop/garage, a barn and corral, and an outhouse. The use of similar materials, the scale, and overall design of the buildings gave the station a cohesive and classic USFS character. Though rarely used by the NPS, the site remains remarkably intact today, appearing much the way it did when first constructed more than a half century ago. [35]

Beyond High Bridge, the most remote USFS administrative site was situated at Bridge Creek where it empties into the Stehekin River. For many years, cabins built by miners at this location had served as way stations for USFS employees and others heading into the backcountry. By the 1930s, the USFS decided that Bridge Creek was an appropriate site for a more permanent ranger station. A residence and possibly other structures were built adjacent to Clear Creek, and a barn and corral were erected nearby. [36] Infrequently used, Bridge Creek Ranger Station was eventually abandoned by the USFS. All of the buildings were removed with the exception of the barn, which continued to serve as storage for hay and tack. After the NPS assumed jurisdiction of the land, it stationed a seasonal backcountry ranger at Bridge Creek. Without primary structures, the NPS used one of the remaining mining cabins to house their ranger. The NPS recently removed the last vestige of the USFS ranger station at Bridge Creek when it dismantled the small barn in October 1985.

Present-day view of High Bridge Ranger Station.
(Photo by G. Luxenberg, NPS, 1984)