National forest lands cover much of Pend Oreille County. To manage the lands, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), withdrew tracts as administrative sites including 382 acres from the recently established Kaniksu National Forest for use as the Sullivan Lake Ranger District. A year prior to the administrative withdrawal, the USFS had already constructed the Sullivan Lake Ranger District’s first buildings on a flat near the east of Outlet Creek and north of the present dam location. The site consisted of just three log structures: a barn, a blacksmith shop, and a Forest Service office.

During its first decades in existence, the site operated seasonally as a station for forest guards (the name for the earliest forest rangers). At Sullivan Lake, and elsewhere, forest guards did it all—constructed lookouts and cabins, planted trees, built trails, patrolled for timber trespass, prevented poaching, and fought fires—for $75 per month. To qualify for the job in 1907, the Forest Service required that candidates meet certain criteria:

1st: Supply three head of horses and complete equipment and tools to work with in the building of trails, cabins, etc.

2nd: Possess the ability to estimate acreage of a triangular tract of land that was staked off.

3rd: Complete a packer test, demonstrating their ability to properly place on their packstock an assortment of equipment such as a barrel, tools, bedding, tent, and complete outfit to be able to get along in the mountains.

4th: To tie a diamond hitch.

During the Depression, USFS activity accelerated as relief programs, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), assisted in improving trails, roads, and facilities throughout the West. In 1936, the CCC constructed the Sullivan Lake Ranger Station’s office. Although no longer used in this capacity, the building remains at the site as a tangible reminder of the CCC, USFS, and this long history of conservation at Sullivan Lake and the national forests as a whole.

Credits and Sources:

Bamonte, Tony, and Susan Schaeffer Bamonte. History of Pend Oreille County. Spokane: Tornado Creek Publications, 1996.

Unknown. “The CCC at Sullivan Lake.” Big Smoke, 2013.

Hudson, Lorelea, et al., Cultural Resource Consultants, Inc., A Historic Overview for the Colville and Idaho Panhandle National Forests and the Bureau of Land Management, Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Districts, Northeastern Washington/Northern Idaho, A Cultural Resource Narrative, Missoula, MT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Region, Report No. 6, 1995.

Thompson, R. Wayne, Historical Research Associates, Inc., “An Archaeological Assessment of a Disturbed Portion of the Historic Sullivan Lake Ranger Station, Sullivan Lake Dam Rehabilitation Project, Pend Oreille County, Washington.” September 2, 1994.

Photographs courtesy of the Pend Oreille County Library District.