Staley Cabin

Staley Cabin

NPS Photo / Jason Ginder

Quick Facts

Location:

Kountze, TX

OPEN TO PUBLIC:

No

Amenities

10 listed

Benches/Seating, Information Kiosk/Bulletin Board, Parking - Auto, Pets Allowed, Picnic Table, Restroom, Restroom - Accessible, Toilet - Vault/Composting, Trash/Litter Receptacles, Wheelchair Accessible

Built in 1934, Staley Cabin is a good example of a log cabin used by homesteaders in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Thinking that this site was available for homesteading, Jimmy Staley built the three-room cabin for his wife and four children using pine timber cut from the property. The original chimney was made of mud and the roof had cypress shingles. Outside, Jimmy’s wife, Elda, planted acorns that became the large oaks that loom over the cabin today. Next to the cabin, the Staleys had a vegetable garden surrounded by a hog-proof fence and an orchard of plum and fig trees.

After living here for a couple of years, Jimmy Staley found out that his homestead was built on timber company land! The Kirby Lumber Company owned the property and tried to evict the family but eventually decided to let them remain after Jimmy signed an acknowledgement of tenancy.

In 1962, Jimmy Staley sold the cabin. Later owners made improvements, including replacements of the roof and chimney. In 1977, three years after the establishment of Big Thicket National Preserve, the National Park Service bought the cabin and surrounding property. The cabin was used as the preserve’s visitor center until 2001.

The inside of the cabin is not open but visitors may walk around the grounds and use the picnic tables. The Kirby Nature Trail starts next to the information kiosk.

More Information

• Located in the Turkey Creek Unit of Big Thicket National Preserve