McGurk Cabin, Log cabin in Yosemite National Park, US
McGurk Cabin is a one-room log structure about 14 feet (4.3 m) square, built of saddle-notched peeled lodgepole pine logs. Its only opening is a low door on the south side. It stands at the edge of McGurk's Meadow, just north of Glacier Point Road in Yosemite National Park.
Jack McGurk, a Yosemite cattleman, used the cabin as his seasonal home from 1895 to 1897, after buying the property from Hugh Davanay. The Army evicted him in 1897 over a land title dispute. The cabin was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 4, 1979.
The cabin reflects how settlers used these high meadows for seasonal livestock operations before the park took over the land. Walking around it, you can see how people adapted to life in remote areas far from towns and roads.
The cabin is reached by a walking trail of about 1.75 miles from Glacier Point Road, gaining elevation gradually as you walk. The trail is straightforward and the cabin sits in an open meadow, making it visible and easy to locate once you arrive.
The cabin was stabilized and preserved by Sierra Club volunteers in the 1950s, a project that saved one of the last remaining buildings from before the park's official protection began. Without this work, the structure would likely have disappeared entirely.
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