As It Was - Episode 2262
In 1962, Forest Service employee H.M. von Stein went bear hunting and discovered an abandoned cabin in a tight grove of ancient cedars high above the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Applegate River.
Dubbed Frog Cabin, it sat on a foundation of sod cut from the pond and had a steep roof of pegged cedar shakes. The walls were of living cedars, making it appear that seven huge trees grew right through the cabin.
Von Stein learned that a man named John Calvin Knox McCloy had taken out a mining claim at the site in the early 1900s after being jilted by his sweetheart Back East. Eventually he had a partner whose wife demanded a cabin. It took the whole mining season to build Frog Cabin. McCloy soon ended the partnership, but lived in the cabin until the 1940s.
Other miners who spoke to von Stein said they had helped McCloy when he was blind, and had taken him to Yreka, California’s poor farm, where he died.
Since 1984 Frog Cabin has been part of the Red Buttes Wilderness Area and can be reached by a two-mile hike from the nearest road.
Sources: von Stein, H. M. "Tree Cabin Still Intact in Siskiyous." Medford Mail Tribune 1962. Print. (SOHS Biography File, “Mc”); Fatig, Paul. "Forest Service Archaeologists are at the Site of an Old Applegate-area Mine." Mail Tribune 22 June 2000 [Medford Oregon]. Web. 9 Sept. 2013.
