Hubbell Trading Post Administrative History

Building Roster

Figure 32. The corrals, pens and sheds, HB-10, are located just to the south of the barn. During the heyday of the trading post, this would have been a busy area. NPS photo by C. Steen and K. Wing, 11 February, 1958, HUTR Neg. 15.

Corrals, Pens, and Sheds

HB-10: This part of the trading post looks substantially the same as it did in about 1915. The area does not now, however, give any idea of the considerable activity that must have gone on during the trading post's heyday. There was an employee who took care of the barn, which of course was no doubt necessary. Such a person would be feeding and watering animals, moving them in and out of the barn to corrals and pens, cleaning stalls, tending to tack and harness, hitching up animals to wagons.

These now forlorn structures and fenced areas were vital to three aspects of the Hubbell business---sheep trading, the raising of domestic stock, and freighting. There are pens and runs for sheep trading, a large corral for domestic animals, and corrals and sheds for mules, horses, and the protection of wagons. It has been pointed out that unless this area of the trading post is understood, the extent of the Hubbells' business interests cannot be fully appreciated. Few tourists wander that far into the complex. The fenced areas contain old wagons and old farming equipment, everything still parked in the weather as if it had been out there since Dorothy Hubbell left. Old equipment, including what must be one of the old gasoline pumps, rests in the sheds.

Most of the construction here was done between 1897 and 1909. The corral complex is made of vertical poles of irregular length, looks much as it did in 1944, and was used principally for sheep. Sheds were built and fell to ruin and were removed. What is left is what was standing in 1967, palisade structures of local timber, heavy log construction. The roof is the usual viga type construction, but here the vigas are covered over with canvas tarps. [22]