Bagby Guard Station - History

History

In the 1920s and 1930s, National Forests road networks were not well developed. To get to job sites, Forest Service employees often traveled many miles on foot or horseback, carrying all the equipment need to perform field work. This made it impractical for employees to make daily round-trips. To facilitate work at remote sites, the Forest Service built guard stations at strategic locations throughout the forest to house fire patrols and project crews.

After World War II, the Forest Service greatly expanded its road network, allowing employees to get to most National Forest areas within a few hours. As a result, guard stations lost their utility. The Forest Service found new uses for some stations, but most were demolished or abandon.

The Bagby Guard Station is located in the Mount Hood National Forest forty miles southeast of Estacada, Oregon, just outside the boundary of Bull of the Woods Wilderness area. It was built next to Bagby Hot Springs in 1913 by Phillip F. Putz, the Forest Service guard assigned to the area. Putz also built a small storage shed adjacent to the cabin. In the years following its construction, the guard station was used as a barracks for Forest Service fire crews that patrolled the surrounding forest during the summer fire season. In 1925 Putz built his own home in Colton, Oregon.

During the 1920s, summer fire crews built a barn, dam, bathhouse, and additional shelters at the site. However, all of these facilities are now gone. Over time, the original guard station fell into disrepair so the Forest Service built a new cabin for the Bagby guard in 1974. Because of its rustic architecture and the cabin’s unique historic value as an early Forest Service guard station, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. In 2006, volunteers from Northwest Forest Conservancy and Friends of Bagby worked with the Forest Service to repair and preserve the original Bagby Guard Station cabin.