For countless centuries, Native Americans in what is now Tulare County traveled into and across the vast, rugged southern Sierra Nevada to avail themselves of its abundant resources. Following the courses and canyons of its streams and rivers, the blue and green chains of its little lakes and lush meadows, and the purposeful paths of its wildlife, they hunted and fished, gathered useful plants and seeds, escaped the San Joaquin Valley’s scorching summer heat, and visited and traded with the people who lived in the huge Owens Valley on the other side of the range.

     In the 1800s, new groups of people from far away began coming into these mountains to exploit their resources on a much greater scale. Prospectors, miners, hunters, trappers, cattlemen, sheepmen, loggers, and mule packers transformed the ancient trails and the landscapes they traveled through.

     In the 1860s, two men, John Jordan and then John Benjamin Hockett, contracted to build trans-Sierra pack trails under the authority of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors. The Jordan Toll Trail, constructed in 1861-62, extended almost 100 miles from Yokohl Valley to near Olancha at the southern end of Owens Lake. Hockett’s Toll Trail was authorized in December, 1862, and built in 1863-64 to connect Visalia to Lone Pine. It traveled up the South Fork of the Kaweah, crossed the Hockett Plateau, incorporated parts of the Jordan Trail, and finally descended near Cottonwood Pass to the Owens Valley. For the next forty years, it served as the principal trail route across the Southern Sierra.

     Harry O’Farrell, a meat-hunter for the Hockett Trail crew, discovered the Mineral King valley in 1864 while searching for game to feed the workers. Union Army troops traveled the trail from Camp Babbitt in Visalia to help protect the Coso silver mines and Camp Independence in the Owens Valley. Ranchers drove their livestock up the trail to feed on mountain meadows in the summer.

     In the 1870s, these trails and the new Mineral King road, built in 1873, were being used by increasing numbers of recreationists — campers, mountaineers, adventurers, fishermen, hunters, and nature enthusiasts. Most traveled with pack trains. Tremendous overgrazing, especially by herds of thousands of sheep, caused extensive erosion, depleted or eliminated plants and forage, and severely damaged the trails. Those who thought of the future believed that uses of the mountains and their resources would have to be regulated and even halted in some areas if their destruction were to be avoided.

     In 1890, Sequoia National Park was established (initially, only one-third its current size). Its mission was to protect the land and resources within its boundaries to provide “a public park, or pleasure ground, for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” Clearly, the unregulated, unfettered exploitation had to be stopped inside the park. This became a chief duty of the U.S. cavalry troops assigned to administer Sequoia starting in 1891.

     Patrolling the big, rugged park meant good trails were needed. The Hockett Trail was ready-made for use by the troops guarding the park’s southern boundary. To facilitate the soldiers’ work, four civilian rangers had been hired and a series of cabins began to be envisioned along the patrol routes. By the summer of 1906, two had been constructed on the trail to Giant Forest and one was underway at Hockett Meadow, about 3-1/2 miles north of the Hockett Trail at an elevation of 8500 feet.

     This prime location was directly south of Atwell Mill and Silver City, where the Army troops were headquartered for the summer. It provided good water from Whitman Creek, good fishing, plenty of deer in the broad, lush meadow, and fine forage for pack and riding stock. The original sturdy cabin, with its shake walls and roof, glazed windows, and large rock outside the front door, served the park’s rangers until 1934, when Civilian Conservation Corps workers built a new ranger station to the east of it. The 1906 building continued to provide accommodations for work crews until it was badly damaged by the heavy winter of 1968-69, and then razed by the Park Service.

     In 1934, along with the new ranger station, the CCC constructed an adjacent barn and, in the forest near Hockett Meadow, a trail camp for tourists and a short-term (“stub”) camp for work crews. The 1934 ranger station continues in use today, serving backcountry rangers, trail crews, snow surveyors, and weather station and meadow monitors. Its companion barn provides storage space and houses tack and feed for ranger and crew livestock.

     The Hockett cabin measures 23 x 33 feet, with two bedrooms and a kitchen-living room. The wood-burning cooking range also heats the interior and vents through the stone chimney in the center of the roof. The log walls rest on a concrete foundation veneered with native stone. An inviting stone-floored porch, 12.5 feet long and 7 feet wide, frames the entry door. The gable roof was originally made of shakes. Later it was covered with aluminum, but the metal has since been replaced with shakes, returning it to its original appearance.

     The barn stands just northeast of the cabin. It, too, is built of logs supported on a stone foundation and capped with a shake roof. It measures 17 x 26 feet outside and 13 x 17 feet inside (the battered pattern of the log corner joints adds to the exterior dimensions).

     Both structures are excellent examples of National Park Service rustic architecture, also called “Parkitecture.” The natural, native materials of their exteriors — the lodgepole pine logs, hand-cut shakes, and granite rock facings on the concrete foundations — enable them to harmonize with their surrounding landscape. Their design and workmanship are compatible with the work of early pioneers in the Sierra Nevada. Recognized for their significance in both architecture and landscape architecture, the two buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. They are also culturally significant, because they were constructed by workers in the CCC, the most concerted social program ever to occur in the area.

     Today’s visitors can still hike or ride on the old Hockett Trail to admire these iconic buildings. Carefully maintained and restored over the years by Park craftsmen, the cabin and barn continue to look just as they did when skilled CCC workers built them in 1934. Deer still graze together with pack and saddle stock on verdant Hockett Meadow. And the Park’s backcountry rangers continue to protect the park and its visitors, just as they have for over 100 years, by patrolling from Hockett Meadow’s ranger station

May, 2020