Bunkhouse

Bunkhouse, 1999.

Quick Facts

OPEN TO PUBLIC:

No

The current bunkhouse was built in 1970 after the original bunkhouse burned to the ground in 1969. The original bunkhouse, actually a complex of three buildings-the foreman's residence, the bunkhouse, and the cookhouse-had been built either by Alpheus Thompson in 1855 or by the More family around 1870.

It was described by Edward Vail in 1901 as a "large two-story ranch house" and was used by Vail & Vickers to house the foreman and the crew's dining room. Men slept in a long, one-story shed adjacent to the larger building.

The bunkhouse burned to the ground on the night of November 3, 1969. Ranch cook Howard Anderson, according to Bill Wallace, former ranch superintendent, "had gotten drunk and went to sleep with a cigarette in the bed. He was sleeping upstairs in the bunk house." A fire started and was doused by Wallace and a cowboy. Later, the fire erupted again and quickly devoured the old house, cookhouse, and bunkhouse and killed Anderson.

After surveying the damage, Al Vail and Wallace sketched out a replacement bunkhouse on a napkin while returning to Santa Barbara on the Vaquero II. An architect put the plans on paper and, over the following year, Bill Wallace and his cowboys built the new bunkhouse, using much salvaged Air Force material, including doors, plumbing, toilets, basins, and lumber.

For more detailed historical information and citations, please refer to the Historic Resource Study: Island Legacies - A History of the Islands within Channel Islands National Park