The West Fork Ranger Station near Darby is under consideration for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.
The ranger station is an administrative facility and district office that serves the Bitterroot National Forest. It lies adjacent to the West Fork of the Bitterroot River on lands selected for the site in 1908.
Only three of the 20 buildings are the subject of the National Register nomination. The 1932 ranger’s residence, the 1939 cookhouse, and the 1940 ranger’s residence garage reflect an important phase in Forest Service history, as it transitioned from early “roving rangers on horseback” to a modern land management agency.
These buildings gain additional significance due to their association with Ole Tangen, a Norwegian-born master log craftsman, who constructed or supervised the construction of about 35 log buildings throughout the Bitterroot Valley, as well as the Horse Heaven guard cabin and the Deep Creek (Magruder) Ranger Station compound, both on the Idaho portion of the Bitterroot National Forest.
“Tangen’s log work remain instructive as examples to modern log builders and preservationists,” the nomination form notes.
Early forest supervisors built headquarters near their forests and the outside world. Rangers, however, were left to find or build their living quarters in remote areas of their districts. Field instructions – known as “The Use Book” – recommended log cabins large enough for a ranger and his family.
The book also directed that rangers’ cabins “should be located where there is enough agricultural land for a small field and suitable pasture … for a few head of horses and a cow or two, in order to decrease the often excessive expense for vegetables and feed.”
The three nominated buildings form a historic enclave on a two-acre parcel at the southeast portion of the West Fork Ranger Station and replaced earlier ones. They embody the distinctive architectural style of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)-era construction found at Forest Service administration sites.
Recent restoration work on the buildings replaced rotted logs, removed wood framing added to the porch walls of the ranger’s house, reroofed the buildings with cedar shingles, and restored the damaged interior of the ranger’s residence. Taken together, the careful renovations have restored the integrity of materials, design, workmanship, feeling, and association that previous alterations negatively impacted.
In 1954, the front porch of the old ranger’s residence was enclosed with lumber framing to provide additional interior room to accommodate employees with families. During the winter of 2011- 2012, the interior of the residence sustained extensive water and mold damage necessitating the gutting of the first floor and basement.
“In 2013, with concurrence from the Montana State Historic Preservation Office, the porch enclosure was removed and the residence restored to its original 1932 configuration,” the nomination form notes. “The Forest Service Region 1 Preservation Team oversaw the work, retaining the original fabric as much as possible and utilizing in-kind materials when necessary … The masonry chimney was rebuilt, maple flooring and pine trim replaced in-kind … and kitchen cupboards custom built to replicate what was removed. “