John R. Nielson Cabin
The John R. Nielson Cabin, built in 1949-1950, in Manti Canyon, Utah, is significant under Criteria A and C as one of only a few remaining historic log cabins in the Manti-La Sal National Forest. It is the only surviving example of an “isolated” cabin, as described by the United States Forest Service (USFS), in Manti Canyon. The history of the cabin represents changes in USFS policies concerning the private use of public lands, particularly concerning summer homes and cabins. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, the USFS encouraged recreational and commercial use of public lands through a system of special use permits. The ongoing dialogue on the status of the cabin documents both the controversy and cooperation that characterizes the relationship between government officials and private local interests regarding public lands in Utah and the western Untied States. The Nielson Cabin represents a mid-twentieth-century example of this relationship. The cabin is also significant for its importance to the surrounding community. The Nielson Cabin was originally built as a hunting-recreational cabin by the extended family of John R. and Alice J. Nielson, and members of the Nielson family have maintained and used the cabin for over fifty years, but it has also been a resource to the neighboring communities. Scouts, church and 4-H groups, hunters, skiers, honeymooners, and many others have used the cabin through the years. The USFS supervised the construction of private cabins and the Nielson cabin is architecturally significant under Criterion C as a surviving example of the influence of the USFS design guidelines on rustic style cabin construction. The Nielson Cabin has excellent historic integrity and is a
contributing historic resource in the Manti-La Sal National Forest of Utah.
Located in the canyon east of Manti, Utah and added to the National Historic Register (#03000772) on June 8, 2004.
The Manti-La Sal National Forest is located in the mountains of central Utah. The forest is largely pine and
aspen, and located along the eastern one-third of Sanpete County. The area was originally home to the local Sanpitch Indians and also used by Ute Indians as a winter base. The first non-native settlers were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon Church) who arrived in 1849, two years after the settlement of Salt Lake City. The settlers chose the Manti area because of the nearby warm springs, abundant limestone, and land for farming and grazing. After a decade-long period of confrontation with the native tribes, a dozen communities were founded by the 1860s. Sanpete County was established in 1850 with Manti as the county seat. The population of the county grew from 365 in 1850 to 11,557 in 1880, primarily due to a large influx of Scandinavian converts to the LDS Church.
The rapid growth of the Utah’s population had a deleterious impact of the nearby forests. Because years of
unregulated logging and overgrazing had denuded the mountain slopes by 1890, forest and rangeland
deterioration had become critical. The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 authorized the federal government to set aside forest reserves for the protection of timber and watersheds. In 1905 Congress transferred responsibility for these national forests to the newly created Forest Service. The Manti National Forest (later called the Manti-La Sal National Forest) was one of six national forests established in Utah. During the first quarter of the twentieth century, the USFS developed a system of special use permits for private use of the forestlands. The first permits were issued for the development of waterpower. An early power plant was built just east of Manti at the mouth of Manti Canyon. Other permits were issued for lumber operations, and livestock grazing and related facilities. The residents of Manti and other communities in Sanpete County had a long history of using the water, timber, and other resources of the canyon. By the early twentieth century there were a number of mills, quarries, logging camps, and livestock facilities in the canyon. Because agriculture was difficult due to the lack of water, livestock was the most important economy of the area. A number of early ranchers had permits for ranges in the canyon. In an ongoing effort to preserve the canyon, the Forest Service began reducing the number of grazing permits over the years.
In the period following World War I, there was rapid growth in the number of people wishing to use the
national forests for recreation, particularly with the increase in mobility that accompanied automobile usage. By the mid-1920s, there were large increases in private motoring, group tours, picnicking, and hotel and resort guests. The Forest Service (and the National Park Service) began a program of recreational land management that included road building and other facilities, especially in the scenic venues such as Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. Because the Manti National Forest and Manti Canyon were somewhat isolated and boasted no scenic wonders comparable to Zion or Bryce Canyon, the recreational use of the canyon was mostly limited to local hikers, campers, hunters, and skiers. In an effort to increase the number of recreational uses of the area, the Forest Service issued special use permits for small private vacation cabins or summer homes. An advertisement dated June 1931 proclaimed “vacation home” sites on national forest land could be obtained from the government for a $5 a year perpetual lease, and for another $7.50 the government would supply the lumber.
In the summer of 1932, John R. Nielson, a resident of Manti, applied for a special use permit to build a log
cabin approximately nine miles up Manti Canyon. John Rudolph Nielson, Jr., was born in Manti on January 21, 1888, the son of Norwegian immigrants. He married Alice Johnson on June 25, 1913. Alice Johnson was born in Manti on May 7. 1889. The couple had seven children: Errol, Eve, R. Lynn, Martha Alice, Margaret, John Henrie, and VeLois. John R. Nielson was a schoolteacher in Manti. He also worked at a variety of jobs, including chicken ranching, to supplement his teaching salary. During the summers, he would take his three sons up Manti Canyon to cut firewood for the winter. The group usually camped in the canyon for two weeks at a time. After two or three years of camping, John R. Nielson decided to apply for a permit to build a cabin. The Forest Service reviewed the permit in August 1933 and the cabin was completed the following year. The official permit was issued in April 1935. The cabin was located on a hill above the North Fork Road within sight of Swen’s Spring. The cabin was small, constructed of pine logs with a dirt roof and a sod floor. The cabin had only three small windows. A lean-to, called the “Kickin’ Coop,” was added to the west side for an additional bedroom. The cabin was used as a home base for wood chopping and deer hunting, but also for family camping and ski trips. The cabin was authorized as a free-use permit, which required the cabin to be open and stocked with supplies for anyone in the area who might require shelter.
On March 7, 1947, the Forest Service informed the Nielson family that the cabin no longer met the
requirements for a free-use permit. Three days later Ranger Merrill Anderson amended the permit stating “Old Cabin to be removed and new one constructed in its place on a new location near by.”6 According to the Nielson family, the Forest Service was concerned the cabin was too close to the road and Swen’s Spring, which was attracting more traffic each year. The cabin also did not meet current guidelines for cabin construction. The old Neilson cabin was demolished in 1948. Both the new site (hidden from view on a ridge approximately 200 feet north of the road) and the construction blueprints were provided for the Forest Service’s approval. A Timber Sale Permit for the new cabin was obtained, and logs were cut in 1948. Construction on the second Nielson cabin began in the summer of 1949. John R. and Alice Nielson, their seven children with spouses and friends helped to build the new cabin, which was completed in 1950.
Assignments were given to each family member to be responsible for a part of the cabin. Those who did not live close by sent money. John R. and John Henrie Nielson selected the secluded location and built a road to the site. Martha Alice, Margaret and Eve hauled the rocks for the foundation. Errol built the chimney, fireplace and stove. Lynn mixed the cement. John R. and Alice J. Nielson were responsible for building most of the walls. Alice Nielson did most of the chinking .herself. The roof was installed and the concrete floor poured at about the same time.
The construction of the cabin followed guidelines for summer homes developed by the USFS in the late 1940s. The foundation was low to the ground with the exterior chimney constructed of stone. The logs were peeled and roughhewn. The tin roof was painted green to comply with Forest Service stipulations that the exterior colors blend with the surrounding landscape. In the spirit of their pioneer ancestors, the Neilson family used only hand tools to build the cabin. The only tools used were the bare minimum: ax, adz, hammer, shovel, pick, handsaw and pole peeler. Photographs were taken of the cabin throughout the construction process.
The construction of the second Nielson Cabin was one of the few examples regulated by the Forest Service. In addition to the first Nielson cabin (1932-1948), there were about a dozen historic isolated cabins in the canyon potentially under the Forest Service’s jurisdiction. Most of the cabin sites were cleared by the Forest Service after the owners failed to maintain them. The oldest may have been the cabin near Al Johnson Hill (built by loggers possibly as early as the 1890s and demolished by the 1920s). Further up the canyon from the site of the old Nielson is the site of a cabin built by Alex Nielson, a brother of John R. Nielson, built around 1937. This cabin was demolished by the 1950s. Near Logger’s Fork is the site of a cabin reportedly built by cattlemen in the 1940s, and used as a camp and for equipment storage. This cabin was demolished after a few years of use. The Wallace Tatton cabin, near Lowry Fork, was built about 1936 as a logging camp. The cabin eventually rotted away and little remains of the structure.
At the upper end of Lowry Fork is Clark Kellars campground, a hunting camp from the 1930s. There is no
structure, but the campground is still in use today, although not an official Forest Service campground. Alt
Stringham’s camp was a tent on a wood frame over a wood floor. Stringham never had a permit to use the site, and the semi-permanent camp was eventually demolished after a couple years of non-use (date unknown). The City Cabin on the Bench Road was built to house equipment for the water pipeline (built around 1937 and demolished circa 1970s?). The Scout’s cabin was built around 1930 in an area between the North and South Fork Creeks. The log cabin in the pines was demolished at an unknown date, probably in the 1970s. In the Burnt Hill area was the Homer Jay (Jr.) Cox and Carl Peterson cabin, built in the late 1930s, by Cox and Peterson as a hunting cabin. The two men were reportedly discouraged by Forest Service restrictions in the canyon and lost their “zeal to own and use” the cabin. The cabin changed hands several times until the 1980s, when it fell into disrepair and was demolished. The Nielson Cabin is the only extant example of an isolated cabin in the canyon.
By 1950, the Forest Service had instituted an “Approved Summer Home” program that encouraged summer homes to be grouped together in one location. In Manti Canyon, this site was located near the South Fork Creek crossing. The Summer Home Area includes three historic cabins, the Morris Pack, Leland Anderson, and Edward Sorensen cabins. They were built between the late 1930s and early 1950s, and at least two of these cabins have been remodeled. Ranger Anderson’s approval of the new Neilson cabin as an isolated cabin in 1947, even after the establishment of the summer home tract, was likely an acknowledgement of the family’s careful stewardship of the original cabin and the surrounding land.
Because the 1947 letter from the Forest Service changed the usage from “free use” to a pay permit, the Nielson family was required to keep the new cabin locked. There was also an increase in the number of non-family members who used the cabin, therefore the Nielson family drew up a set of rules for the new cabin:
1) leave the wood box full,
2) leave the cabin clean,
3) respect the mountain environment,
4) record your visit,
5) lock the door.
The family also began keeping a log of all overnight trips to the cabin by family members and visitors. Though the log begins in the summer of 1954 with a few family-friends outings and the honeymoon of
VeLois Nielson and Dennis Carbine, the comments in the log represent the types of uses for the cabin during the historic period between 1950 and 1953.
The cabin logs indicate a large number of both family and non-Nielson family members used the cabin. Boy Scouts have made semi-annual trips (summer and winter) to the cabin nearly every year since its construction. Deer hunting trips were also annual events. Stanly W. Duncan, the oldest son of Billy and Martha Alice Duncan, suggests that the construction and use (especially the deer hunts) of the cabin was a catharsis and a therapeutic refuge for his father and uncles (most of whom ere World War II Veterans) in the years between the WWII and the Korean War. On August 18, 1956 “nine crazy people” stayed at the cabin for a “Bow & Arrow” deer hunt. A few weeks later on September 22nd, Forest Ranger LeGrand Olson signed the log with these encouraging words, “This is a beautiful spot, and ingenious cabin. Keep it attractive, in repair, and enjoy the canyon.” On October 19th , a group of tourists wrote these words: “Americans sure show lots of hospitality.” In July of 1957 a large group of nine and ten-year-old girls stayed at the cabin as part of a 4-H Club outing. At the end of that month, Margaret Nielson Peterson brought her family and a friend’s family to the cabin. Her friend, Jackie Bryant, wrote: “Didn’t ever think I’d see any place big enough to sleep both the Peterson & Bryant broods. Couldn’t sleep in the night I figured there are 22 beds. We can both expand our families – If we have the courage. Don’t blame Margaret a bit for bragging about ‘the cabin’.”
Though beloved by the Nielson family and the community, the new Nielson cabin was embroiled in controversy from the beginning. In July 1950, before the cabin was finished, Forest Ranger Howard Folger sent a letter to the family indicating the service had no record of a permit for the new cabin. The Forest Service was working toward the goal of authorizing cabin construction only in the Summer Home area. It was also beginning to enforce a policy that required the removal of isolated (and unauthorized) cabins from public lands. Alice J. Nielson spoke to the rangers by phone and received permission to continue the construction work, After the death of John R. Nielson on April 6, 1951, Alice J. Nielson was again required to negotiate with the Forest Service to adjust the ownership of the cabin. In 1954, the permit was authorized for Alice J, Nielson and John H. Nielson. The Forest Service continued to accept the annual permit fee after the death of Alice J. Nielson on November 20, 1979, and John Henrie Nielson in October 18, 1999.
In January 2001, the status of the cabin became the subject of intense discussions between the Forest Service and the Nielson family. The Forest Service initially wished to demolish the cabin in order to comply with its “removal of isolated cabin policy.” Besides the Nielson Cabin, there is currently one other historic example in the Manti-La Sal National Forest, the Whitlock cabin in Mayfield. This cabin, in cooperation with the Forest Service, is being preserved by its local community. The controversy surrounding the Nielsen Cabin highlights the decades-old relationship (marked by both cooperation and tension) between federal oversight of public lands and the local citizens. The Nielson family (with the support of numerous city, county and state leaders) hopes to preserve the cabin as an important historical resource in Manti Canyon. A proposal in which the Nielson family establishes a not-for-profit entity to relieve the Forest Service of maintenance and liability requirements is currently being considered. The compromise has prompted one of the most complete compilations of construction documents, correspondence, anecdotal remembrances and historic photographs of a private cabin
on public land. The John R. Nielson Cabin is probably the best-documented historic recreational cabin in Utah, and is a contributing historic resource in the Manti-La Sal National Forest.
