Tasked with patrolling thousands of acres of public land in the Bitterroot Forest Reserve (later named the Bitterroot National Forest) rangers Henry “Hank” C. Tuttle and Nathaniel E. "Than" Wilkerson built this one-room cabin in 1899. It is the oldest building associated with the Forest Service, built under the Forest Reserve Act when the agency was part of the General Land Office. Hank and Than selected a site near the Alta mining camp, harvested the logs, and spent two weeks building the walls and sod roof. From this simple station, they carried out their official duties issuing timber and mining permits, clearing trail, and preventing wildfires. According to the Forest Service’s first director Gifford Pinchot, a ranger had to “take care of himself and his horses under very trying conditions; build trails and cabins; ride all day and all night; pack, shoot, and fight fire without losing his head. He must know a good deal about the timber of the country and how to estimate it; he must be familiar with lumbering and the sawmill business, the handling of livestock, mining, and the land laws.” Unfortunately, a land survey revealed that the rangers built the station on Pete Bennett’s mining claim. The cabin was relinquished to Bennett and another cabin was built nearby. In 1941, the Hamilton Lions Club purchased the land and donated the historic station to the Forest Service for preservation. After narrowly escaping the fires of 2000, the cabin remains a symbol of the agency’s ongoing work to preserve and protect public land.
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