You are here

Charlie Yale Cabin

-A A +A
c. 1900. Approximately 8 miles west of Nolan, Glacier River

The cabin built by Charlie Yale has three rooms in an L-shaped plan. The main room, about 14 feet square, served as the living room, while the outer room, about 15 feet by 9 feet, was a drying room and work room. A shed-roofed addition to one side, about 7 feet by 9 feet, was probably used for storage. The walls are round logs, saddle-notched at the corners and chinked with moss. The gable roof is constructed of sod laid on round poles, then covered with flattened fuel cans.

There is a second, smaller cabin nearby displaying the same construction techniques. Other artifacts and features at the site are related to mining, Charlie Yale's occupation, and include a pipe rack, for the storage of steam pipes, a shaft opening, and a tailings pile. Yale sank a 168-foot-deep shaft to bedrock and drifted from there, but the mining was apparently not profitable. Yale was described by Robert Marshall as “an old hermit prospector” who lived on Glacier River for about ten years, then moved on. Since Yale's departure, the cabin has been used for shelter by travelers on the winter trail to Wiseman, which passed just behind this cabin.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Alison K. Hoagland
×

Data

What's Nearby

Citation

Alison K. Hoagland, "Charlie Yale Cabin", [Nolan, Alaska], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/AK-01-IN059.

Print Source

Buildings of Alaska, Alison K. Hoagland. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 251-251.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,