Lake of the Woods Ranger Station
The Lake of the Woods Ranger Station is a United States Forest Service compound consisting of eight buildings overlooking Lake of the Woods in the Fremont-Winema National Forests of southern Oregon. All of the ranger station structures were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1937 and 1939. Today, the compound serves as a Forest Service work center, and the old ranger station office is a visitor center. The ranger station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. History. In the early 20th century, the forest road networks were not well  developed. To facilitate work in National Forests, the Forest Service built district ranger stations at strategic locations within the forest to house full-time employees and provide logistics support to fire patrols and project crews working in remote areas of the forest. After World War II, the Forest Service greatly expanded its road network, allowing employees to get to most forest areas within a few hours. As a result, many of the more isolated ranger stations were closed or converted to summer guard stations. The historic Lake of the Woods Ranger Station was established during this early period and is  still used by Forest Service crews today. In 1898, the Cascade Forest Reserve was created in southern Oregon. The forest area around Lake of the Woods became part of the reserve. The forest was managed as part of that Cascade reserve until 1908, when the area was transferred to the Crater National Forest. The Forest Service issued the first residential use permit for a private cabin in the Lake of the Woods area in 1916. In 1920, the Forest Service built a public campground at the lake. The site was very popular, with 1,850 summer visitors using the campground the  first year it open. In 1923, the road into the Lake of the Woods area was improved. That same year, the Forest Service built a second campground to accommodate the increasing number of people vacationing at the lake. In 1926, the Forest Service issued a permit allowing the "Lake of the Woods Recreation Company" to build a resort at the lake. During this period, the only Forest Service facility at Lake of the Woods was a small log cabin originally built by a fur trapper, possibly around 1900. In 1929, the Forest Service replaced the cabin with a much larger  ranger office at the north end of the lake. In 1932, the Lake of the Woods Ranger Station was transferred to the Rogue River National Forest along with the lake side campgrounds and the surrounding forest. In the mid-1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps built a number of new buildings at the ranger station. All of the structures but one were built in the Cascadian rustic style. In 1961, the Forest Service transferred the Lake of the Woods and the surrounding forest to the newly formed Winema National Forest. In 2002, the Winema National Forest was administratively combined with the Fremont  National Forest, becoming the Fremont-Winema National Forests. The Winema National Forest's Klamath Ranger District still uses the ranger station as a work center while the old office is now a visitor center during the summer months. All eight of the ranger station buildings are historically important and are still in excellent condition. Because the Lake of the Woods Ranger Station is of unique historic value as an early Forest Service ranger station, the compound was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 8 April 1986. The historic district covers approximately . Structures. With eight historic buildings, the  Lake of the Woods Ranger Station is a classic Forest Service ranger station. The buildings were designed by the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Regional Architecture Group. All of the structures were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1937 and 1939. Their work included a ranger station administrative office, two ranger residences, a crew house, garage, gas and oil shed, storage shed, and a barn. The buildings except the barn were constructed in the Cascadian rustic architectural style using weatherboard, wood shingles, native stone, and concrete as the basic building materials. The barn is a peeled-log structure. Many  of the gables have the open pine tree logo cutouts that were common to Forest Service structures built during the 1930s. Location. The Lake of the Wood Ranger Station is located in western Klamath County, Oregon, surrounded by the Winema National Forest. The elevation at the site is above sea level. The area around the ranger station is a dense, multi-storied mixed conifer forest, dominated by Douglas-fir and white fir. There are also has some ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, and aspen in the surrounding forest. On area receives an average of to of precipitation annually. The ranger station  is located near the crest of the Cascade Mountains on the north shore of Lake of the Woods. It is west of Klamath Falls and east of Medford, Oregon. The ranger station is just off Oregon Route 140. All of the historic buildings are located on a narrow strip of land between the south side of the highway and the north shore of the lake. The old ranger station office is now a Forest Service visitor center that is open during the summer.