| Built by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) for the Santiam National Forest (later Willamette National Forest) and used throughout the twentieth century, the Fish Lake Guard Station is significant to the State of Oregon under National Register Criteria A and C under the areas of conservation, politics/government, and architecture with a period of significance of 1906 to 1968. The Fish Lake Guard Station is eligible as a historic district for listing under Criterion A due to its many associations with events significant to history including the development of USFS fire management, administrative sites, and remount stations on forest land in the state of Oregon; the CCC, a Depression-era federal work relief program that assisted with the development of national forests, administrative sites, and labor on forests and represents a regional expression of this federal program in Oregon; and finally with the 1964 Wilderness Act, which called for the protection of natural and untrammeled landscapes to be managed with non-invasive activities so as to preserve its natural conditions and represents a regional expression of this landmark legislation in Oregon. Additionally, the Fish Lake Guard Station is eligible as a historic district under Criterion C as the station’s rustic-style buildings are a representative example of USFS administrative architecture built by Forest employees and the CCC using USFS and CCC plans and rustic design, made with local, natural materials to blend with the surrounding landscape. While there are several USFS administrative sites constructed within similar time periods throughout the state of Oregon, the Fish Lake Guard Station is singularly unique within Oregon as one of the best examples of continued and evolving use embodying the span and multifarious nature of USFS history, land management, and architecture.
The Fish Lake Guard Station is eligible for listing as a historic district at the state level in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The station is eligible under Criterion A for its association with the development of the US Forest Service as a government agency implementing conservation management in the Western Cascades on the Santiam (later Willamette) National Forest. The centrally located Guard Station provided fire crews and Forest staff with an administrative base and remount station from which to provide conservation management for the forest and implement fire protection—fulfilling the US Forest Service mission of sustainable multiple-use land management to meet the diverse needs of people. Later, the Fish Lake Guard Station served as an essential catalyst as a remount station in managing designated wilderness areas near the Willamette National Forest after the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964. Traditional transportation methods and fire suppression equipment, namely pack strings, at the Fish Lake Guard Station provided the specific and sensitive set of management practices required in wilderness areas.
The Fish Lake Guard Station is eligible for listing as a historic district in the NRHP under Criterion A for its association with federal and state politics and government. The men of the Mary’s Creek spike camp part of the CCC were responsible for constructing countless Forest Service administrative buildings, recreation sites, and providing critical labor. The CCC was a federal work relief program created in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation that employed young men to work in the areas of reforestation, road construction, soil erosion prevention, constructing buildings and recreation sites on federal lands (including national forests), and flood control projects. With help from the CCC, the Fish Lake Guard Station expanded in capacity as a remount station to continue providing management for the Willamette National Forest during a time of national crisis. The Fish Lake Guard Station maintained its association with federal and state conservation management into the twenty-first century by providing critical services to wilderness areas, made possible by the expansion of the site during the 1930s.
The Fish Lake Guard Station is eligible for listing as a historic district in the NRHP under Criterion C as a prime example of Forest Service rustic architecture carried throughout construction and use of the site. The rustic style predominant in USFS construction history throughout the twentieth century is reminiscent of the Arts and Crafts movement that incorporated a naturalistic approach to design. Rustic designs were used in numerous private and government administrative buildings in the first half of the twentieth century, and principally during the Depression-era by the CCC. Generally, the rustic style took the form of log or wood-frame buildings with mid-to-high pitched gable roofs, had fieldstone or brick chimneys, multiple-light windows, log, horizontal-clapboard, drop, or wood-shingle siding often with vertical boards or shingles on the gable ends, and fieldstone or concrete foundations, entries, and patios. Under national direction, USFS administrative sites were designed as ensembles with purposeful layouts to create efficiency, aesthetic feeling, and to blend with the surrounding environment by using local materials within the rustic style. The rustic style and environmentally-minded design of the Fish Lake Guard Station is evident in the log construction of a remote station (early period), drop siding (CCC), multiple–light windows, mid-to-high pitched gable roofs, use of local materials (lava rock and timber), and spatial relationship of administrative buildings. The position of the Guard Station to Fish Lake and its use of local materials, namely timber and lava rock, neither obscures nor clashes with its surroundings but blends with the environment and provides spectacular views of Fish Lake and the surrounding peaks. |
