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RPBrown
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PostThu Mar 27, 2014 10:52 pm 
Maybe someone can help me identify this shelter. The photo was taken by my great aunt, early 1940's I think. I think I know who the person is in the photo, a friend of the family. But I'm not positive either. You can see the telephone lines pretty clearly. Notice that many of the shingles/boards were already removed from the side of the shelter. The shelter probably wouldn't have been very old at this point. Just my opinion, but I would guess this was a shelter that was very heavily visited and probably close to a road. Looking carefully at the terrain and trees, I think this might be Bark Shanty. I don't think Bark Shanty was around very long. Anyone have any memories or old photos they could share? Any idea when Bark Shanty was built?

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PostThu Mar 27, 2014 11:07 pm 
re: photo posted at 10:44 pm by RPBrown: is that a ceramic insulator in the tree at center of image? possibly telephone line? bear wire? or are my eyes playing tricks on me? not a clue on bark shanty, but that is an excellent photograph. thank you.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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RPBrown
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PostThu Mar 27, 2014 11:23 pm 
Ski, That was the telephone line, which was active at the time. The line went over Marmot Pass and straight down over the hill where it intersected with the telephone line on the Dungeness. Good eye!

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RPBrown
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PostWed Apr 09, 2014 7:54 am 
Hi Rod, Just wanted to bump this again. Were you able to find any information about the Shelter Rock Cabin, up the Big Quil? Various older maps depict it as both a shelter and cabin. Again, the fact that it was on the main trail (which dates back to the 1890s) makes me think it was built by the Forest Service. Also, if you look at my aunt's 1939 image, it looks like a public dwelling....not a miner's cabin as has been suggested.

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RodF
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PostWed Apr 09, 2014 12:03 pm 
RPBrown, sorry I don't have any more information on Shelter Rock cabin, but hope to next year. (Olympic NF plans to document historic resource forms for all its surviving shelters, and has offered to pull Dutch Notenboom's file boxes out of its Olympia warehouse and give me use of an office at Hoodsport RS so I can go through them next winter. Dutch told me his Olympic NF archives had a folder on each structure. But archives went into storage after his retirement in 1999. If USFS built or maintained Shelter Rock cabin, there should be a file on it.) Bark Shanty is a good guess - it doesn't appear to match the site of any other surviving shelter in Olympic NF. Curious that there are two phone wires, as all USFS phones used a single wire with ground return.

"of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt" - John Muir "the wild is not the opposite of cultivated. It is the opposite of the captivated” - Vandana Shiva
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RPBrown
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PostFri Apr 11, 2014 7:52 am 
Rod, Excellent, thanks for the response. If you would like assistance going through those records in Olympia let me know. It would certainly be my pleasure. Regarding the two phone wires, I assumed one was spliced off the main line coming up the river. I have a tiff image of this photo (162 MBs, way to large to post here) and it looks like one of the two lines goes into the shelter. As I mentioned, my aunt told me Boulder Shelter had a phone installed in the late 30's, a fairly common set-up I think. I assumed maybe this shelter did as well. I showed the shelter photo to my uncle who remembered seeing Bark Shanty standing in the late 50s. He thought the photo was Bark Shanty. But, it would be good to compare with another photo. Maybe someone else will post one someday. Rich

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RPBrown
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PostFri Apr 11, 2014 8:15 am 
Rod, BTW, if you look closely at the Bark Shanty photo it looks like an old iron cook-top stove standing on the far side. These old photos always reveal so much forgotten history.

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Ski
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PostFri Apr 11, 2014 11:27 am 
RPBrown wrote:
...a phone installed in the late 30's, a fairly common set-up I think. I assumed maybe this shelter did as well...
based on what we know about some other areas on the Peninsula, a more than reasonable assumption: "...that night they were in the camp on Promise Creek and they telephoned around to the camp on Alta Creek..." - Reed Marshall interview 11/15/75

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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RPBrown
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PostFri Apr 11, 2014 11:33 pm 
Thanks for sharing that Ski! A comparison shot. The first photo is taken very near Bark Shanty on the old CCC road, circa 1958. The person in the photo is a great uncle. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the shelter in the second photo is Bark Shanty, circa early 40's. You can see the similarity in terrain and vegetation. Rod, do you have any record of the year Bark Shanty was built?

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RodF
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PostSat Apr 12, 2014 6:21 am 
RPBrown wrote:
Rod, do you have any record of the year Bark Shanty was built?
Bark Shanty Camp (without a shelter) is depicted on the 1930, 1933 and 1936 maps, and Bark Shanty Shelter first appears (as does Ten Mile Shelter and Shelter Rock cabin) on the 1938 Olympic NF map, on the 1940 USGS Quilcene sectional, and later maps through the 1950s. The first record of Bark Shanty Shelter I have is on a memo dated Jan. 27, 1937. So Bark Shanty Shelter was apparently built in 1936, presumably by a CCC Camp Quilcene crew. Hope we can find a definite record in Olympic NF archives. The 1923 Olympic NF map depicts the telephone line up the Big Quilcene River past Bark Shanty Camp to Wetweather Creek (where Ten Mile Shelter would later be built). The 1930 map shows the telephone line continuing over Marmot Pass and connecting with the Dungeness phone line. No map I've found resolves two minor mysteries in the area: - did a telephone line continue south from Boulder Shelter past Cedar Springs Camp to Constance Pass? A seasonal fire lookout tent platform existed there in the 1930s and was manned as an Aircraft Warning Service observation site during WWII. I assume it must have had a telephone? - where was the "Big Quilcene Forks" Shelter listed on the 1937 memo mentioned above?

"of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt" - John Muir "the wild is not the opposite of cultivated. It is the opposite of the captivated” - Vandana Shiva
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PostSat Apr 12, 2014 11:28 am 
the author of the text in the 1930 document cited above wrote:
The Forest Service has built 958 miles of trail, 613 miles of telephone line, and 18 trail shelters
My guess would be that with 613 miles of telephone line, they had phones all over, but maybe that's just wild speculation. Did I read that right? In 1930 there were 18 shelters, and by 1937 there were 79?

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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PostSat Apr 12, 2014 7:28 pm 
When I was a kid[1942], my dad and I were camped at Diamond Meadows shelter on the west fk of the Dose . If you picked up the ear piece on the phone there you could listen to all the conversations going on in the area. I remember a lady up on Del Monte Ridge{plane spotter] talking to another lady on the Elwah. I guess that means the phone line from there came down to the Dose. Jake

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RodF
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PostSun Apr 13, 2014 7:49 am 
Ski wrote:
Did I read that right? In 1930 there were 18 shelters, and by 1937 there were 79?
You read it right, but both lists are incomplete. There were certainly more than 18 shelters in 1930, and many shelters were built in the 1930s.
mwjake wrote:
When I was a kid[1942], my dad and I were camped at Diamond Meadows shelter on the west fk of the Dose . If you picked up the ear piece on the phone there you could listen to all the conversations going on in the area. I remember a lady up on Del Monte Ridge{plane spotter] talking to another lady on the Elwah. I guess that means the phone line from there came down to the Dose. Jake
Fascinating, Jake! Thanks! We should look for telephone insulators in trees along the Constance Pass Trail up to Sunnybrook Meadows. Note added Feb 2016: Taplin's 1932 Trail Guide shows a "T." for telephone at Constance Pass (fire lookout platform). 1933 Olympic NF map shows the telephone line connected to both Muscott Camp (Dosewallips) and Boulder Shelter (Dungeness) phone lines. A brief review of Aircraft Warning Services wartime activities in Olympic is in Chapter 2 of the Backcountry Historic Structures Report. AWS needs strained the Park's limited manpower, but provided funds for maintenance of the trail system and phone lines.

"of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt" - John Muir "the wild is not the opposite of cultivated. It is the opposite of the captivated” - Vandana Shiva
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RPBrown
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PostSun Apr 13, 2014 10:31 pm 
Rod, All good questions. So, to be clear....the original Shelter Rock "rock" is not related to the cabin. My 1930 map shows "cabin" (look closely on the map below, directly above the "R" in Rainbow Trail) as well as Shelter Rock (where the actual rock was) a little more than a quarter mile upstream, and on the other side of the river from the cabin. This is also consistent with many old timers I talked to over the years (Ralph McClanahan, Earl Ward as well as various relatives) who told me the "rock" was on the other side of the river, where the old trail used to go. I've found the rock on a few occasions. It is nothing like the Shelter Rock in Royal Basin. 2 or 3 people could probably sleep there out of the rain. If you poke around there enough you can still find old tin cans, bits of glass etc.
Old timers referred to the Big Quil Forks as where Tunnel Creek and the Big Quil come together. Back then it was called the North Fork (main fork of the river nowadays) and West Fork (Tunnel Creek). Now, having said that, I've also seen references where the Townsend Creek confluence was also called The Forks. Satterlee's The Dub of South Burlap describes coming to the Big River Forks when they dropped down through The Notch, about 1895 or so I think. What they called the North Fork of the big river I'm pretty sure was Townsend Creek. Having said all that, I think the shelter you are showing for the Big Quilcene Forks is a mistake. They have to be referring to Bark Shanty. The Big Quil Dam, located at the fork of the Big Quil and Tunnel Creek was constructed about 1927. I know there was no shelter there. Bark Shanty may have been called the Big Quil Forks by some folks due to the confluence of Townsend Creek. BTW, my 1930 map (above) shows a camp at Bark Shanty. Really interesting about the aircraft warning camp at Constance Pass! I don’t recall seeing any telephone insulators beyond Boulder Shelter. I was told the phone line up the Dungeness ended at Boulder Shelter, where the phone was mounted. Of course, you have to remember the phone line predates the shelter by a few years. Maybe the earliest phone line up the Dungeness simply connected with the line from Marmot Pass. After Boulder Shelter was built the line up the Dungeness might have been extended to the shelter, where a phone could be mounted. Incidentally, I’ve found the old line that dropped below Marmot Pass. There are still huge rolls of wire down in the timber. The phone line to Constance Pass came from the Dose via Sunny Brook. I'm pretty sure I recall seeing insulators but can't swear to it. This 1932 map (below) shows a telephone line at Constance Pass. Interestingly, it is not shown on my 1930 map.
Sorry to be so long-winded! I love talking about the old days.

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RPBrown
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PostSun Apr 13, 2014 10:33 pm 
Jake, Sorry, I missed your message somehow. I love hearing stories like that. It validates all the stories I heard over the years. Thank you for sharing!!

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