12/15/2023 0 Comments Jim denham wine steward![]() ![]() Built of 25-foot long Douglas Firs that were stacked 17 high, it was made in a style that required no nails. Iroquois reservation log houses and Métis houses from the 19th century in New York and Canada were of similar craft, but the construction of the cabin is unlike anything ever observed in Oregon. Yet another theory states that the cabin could be the sole surviving relic of a short-lived Russian trader-settlement of the valley under the orders of Catherine The Great. Early fur trappers traversing the Pacific Northwest frequently took Métis wives. One idea suggests it was the Métis People, a multi ancestral indigenous group in Canada and parts of the United States. We know there were multiple people working on the cabin because they left their respective marks on the wood hewn so long ago. Theories abound as to just who the builders were. Photo courtesy of Pam Hayden to The Oregonian. Historical image of the Molalla Log House as it stood in years past. As far as historical records go, no white men were supposed to be in the Willamette Valley at this time, yet here is a testament to their presence. Only in recent years has enough information come to light to place the year of construction sometime in the 1790s, predating Lewis and Clark's Northwest Expedition by at least ten years. The building had been used over the years as a livestock barn, storage shed, machine shop, and house. It could single-handedly rewrite Oregon's known history, and you can visit this extraordinary structure.Įxactly how old is the partially decayed hand-hewn log cabin and who built it? There are still many unanswered questions surrounding the building, but one thing is for certain: it's likely the oldest structure still standing in Oregon and possibly the entire Pacific Northwest.ĭubbed "The Molalla Log House", the rotting structure has been known as the "Fox Granary" on historical surveys since the 1980s.
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