The Bergman Cabin, 1915

In 1915 Arlie Bergman packed in everything he’d need to build a cabin over the Lost Valley Trail – lumber, cement, nails, plaster, wooden doors, and even quarter-inch thick glass windows, all packing in on the backs of burros. For a fireproof exterior, he also packed in large sheets of galvanized metal. The metal sheets and the doors were so long they stuck out past the burros’ heads and tails, and since burros will not turn in a direction they can’t see, someone had to guide every pack animal around each of the many turns on the Lost Valley Trail.

Arlie Bergman’s 1915 homestead cabin still stands today. Originally it did not have a front porch, it was added in 1916. Out back was a barn built of logs cut in the valley, and an outhouse. At the foot of a little knoll just west of the cabin was a little spring that Arlie developed by driving a pipe back into the hillside and installing a cistern to catch the water.

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