In 1864, the U.S. government gave the Northern Pacific Railroad a land grant of almost 40 million acres, over 17 million of which were in Montana. In 1926, Eli and Tine Laird purchased a thousand of those acres from the Northern Pacific in the Upper Swan Valley. There they built Laird Lodge with the help of their son-in-law John Stark. In 1939, John, with a small crew, built his own home on land he and his wife Marie were given by her parents .3 miles from the lodge. John paid six dollars for larch logs, which he harvested from nearby Forest Service land and undoubtedly acquired the stone for the chimney locally as well. Construction was almost entirely completed with hand tools: axes, hand saws, crosscut saws, chisels, adzes, and drawknives. John’s skill as a homebuilder is particularly evident in the daubing, which overlays expertly cut split pole chinking between the logs. The interior, particularly the spiral larch log staircase with a curved sapling railing, also demonstrates John’s craftsmanship. The house doubled as John’s workshop, where he carved wood sculptures and crafted log furniture, which Marie upholstered. Many of their original pieces still furnish the house. Unlike hastily built nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century log cabins, which were intended to be replaced when time and money allowed, the Stark home was built to last. In this it resembled the Rustic-style log buildings that had become fashionable for vacation properties (like Laird Lodge), and which incorporated modern comforts while reflecting a nostalgia for simpler times.
]]>Pack mules provided the only access to this site in 1932, when U.S. Forest Service personnel constructed the Double Arrow Lookout. Built following the L-4 plan designed by Clyde Fickes, the structure overlooks the Clearwater River drainage from atop a twenty-foot tower. Fickes’ detailed plans specified pre-cut and labeled lumber, so employees with limited carpentry skills could assemble the structures. Notable design elements include a three-foot catwalk, ribbons of nine-light windows (providing a 360-degree view), and a pyramidal hipped roof. Hipped roofs used shorter lengths of lumber than gable roofs, making it easier to transport material to the site by pack train. The fourteen-by-fourteen-foot structure doubled as living quarters for the lookout man stationed here during fire season. This is one of the first L-4 style lookouts built after Region 1, which included all of the forests in Montana and Northern Idaho, approved Fickes’ design in 1931. After World War II, Region 1 increasingly abandoned “fixed detection points” (lookouts) for “aerial detection” (airplanes and helicopters), and the number of lookouts dropped from 844 in 1945 to 272 in 1954. The Forest Service continued to staff lookouts with views of high value lands that suffered frequent fires; the Double Arrow Lookout remained in use at least until 1967 and likely into the 1980s. Once it was no longer needed as part of the Lolo National Forest’s ground detection network, the structure was abandoned and began to deteriorate. Crews restored the lookout in 2006 to become part of the Forest Service’s cabin rental program.
]]>Seeley Lake is one link in a chain of five lakes nestled between the lofty Swan and Mission mountain ranges in western Montana. Two hundred acres of ancient larch trees surround the area, which has drawn visitors since the early 1900s. In 1924, the USDA Forest Service granted a permit to the Western Montana Council of Boy Scouts to construct a summer camp. The facility was originally a tent camp but by the late 1930s there was need for a more permanent facility. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), New Deal programs vital to the nation’s economic recovery during the depressed 1930s, provided funds and manpower to construct the present camp. The rustic log buildings were constructed in 1939-1940 under the direction of Forest Service engineer Clyde Fickes. It is the only CCC-constructed youth camp in Montana. Designed to fit the natural landscape, the twenty buildings of saddle-notched native larch demonstrate excellent craftsmanship, remarkable since CCC workers were primarily “city boys” trained on the job. Several interior fireplaces of uncut native stone likewise reveal extraordinary masonry skills. Because of its public ownership and support, Camp Paxson has long provided recreational opportunities to diverse youth organizations. In 1995, the Missoula Children’s Theatre secured a special use permit from the Lolo National Forest to manage Camp Paxson. Named for Montana artist Edgar S. Paxson, the facility now serves as a center for drama training and retreats, children’s music camp, disadvantaged youth and other youth groups, family reunions, and community organizations.
]]>This small cabin was constructed about 1935 to accommodate guests of Laird’s Lodge. Complementing the rustic architecture of the main lodge, logs of peeled, rounded lodgepole pine are joined with saddle notched corners and finished with quarter-sawn poles. Built-in furnishings, handcrafted on site of logs and sawn poles, reinforce the cabin’s rustic character. The log addition attached to the rear in the 1950s was originally part of a historic bunkhouse that was divided and reused.
]]>Amiable, gregarious Eli “Cap” Laird, a Lake Coeur d’Alene steamboat captain, was a well-known big game hunter in the Idaho panhandle and western Montana by the time he built Laird’s Lodge and cabins between 1927 and 1935. Never a true “dude ranch” in that guests did not participate in the chores, it was built specifically as a tourist retreat with recreational offerings from the strenuous to the relaxing. Laird advertised the area as “chuck-full o’ hush” at a time when tourism was still an infant industry here. His own designs for the buildings are in the deliberately “Rustic” log-and-stone style popular in western resorts from the 1910s into the 1940s, what visitors expected as part of an “Old West” experience based on Hollywood images rather than on actual frontier architecture. Laird further chose cabin names such as “Round-up,” “Stampede,” and “Lariat” to emphasize his theme. In the 1930s, he added modern amenities, including electricity generated by a paddle wheel in the river. After Laird died during World War II, his wife sold the property and it continued as the Diamond L-Bar Ranch, after the Lairds’ original stock brand, until 1968. During the 1970s, the lodge and cabins were sold to separate private owners.
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