Early in the 1900’s the forest service encouraged citizens to build their own summer homes on U.S. Forest Service lands.

Herschel Howard was one of those people.  Herschel and his brother and father built the original Twin Lakes Tract Cabin # 4 in 1927.

Many of these cabins are in the fourth or fifth generation of family ownership.  The “lords of yesteryear” that produced the Recreation Residence Program, as well as the National Park Act of 1916, combined Progressive Era and Romantic ideas of wilderness and nature with early modern outdoor recreation and tourism.

Sporting some debonair mountain chic.

The tract originally had 5 cabins, #5 burned down and was not rebuilt.

The original plan for the cabin is below, drawn by Herschel himself.

The cabin has had various owners and gone through several remodels over the years.

Incredible snow season of 2011…..no one was worried about drought that year!

Some adorable cubs wreaking havoc on the cabin door.  Looking for picnic baskets I imagine….