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| The Stone Cabin aka "Pratt Lodge" |
Wallace Pratt’s beloved
stone cabin in McKittrick Canyon is now called Pratt Lodge by the Park Service. The cabin occupies a beautiful situation in the Canyon a little over two miles from the trailhead. When we arrived, we noticed two large madrone trees near the cabin door. A large Alligator juniper and another madrone grew near the shed and guest quarters in the back. The sheer canyon walls rose high to the west, and the front of the cabin faced a more open eastern vista. Pratt began building the cabin in 1931 from an architect’s design, and he always referred to it as “the stone cabin”. The house is constructed almost entirely of stone that was quarried outside the canyon walls and handpicked by Pratt himself. The unusual-looking roof is made of thin sheets of stone that were somehow cemented together. The roof’s considerable weight is supported by large heart-of-pine rafters and collar beams that Pratt had hauled in from Austin. The inside of the cabin is beautiful! The living room has a vaulted ceiling and a large stone fireplace with a cast iron cauldron. There is a fully equipped kitchen complete with a familiar jadeite platter and dishes decorating the hutch, a nicely furnished bedroom with a handmade quilt on the bed, and a beautiful old-fashioned bathroom. There is even a garage for an automobile in the back, but the road to the stone cabin is now overgrown and impassable, because the Park Service wanted to keep automobiles out of McKittrick Canyon. Unfortunately, the power lines to the cabin are still standing, creating a bit of an eye sore. I can now see another reason for the ban on overnighting in McKittrick Canyon. With no established campsite in the canyon, the beautiful stone cabin would create an ideal place to camp that would be too tempting for some to resist.
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Ship on the Desert
NPS photo |
The Pratt family had lived in the stone cabin for several years until a flood washed out the road, trapping them in the canyon for a number of days. This experience prompted Wallace Pratt to build another house called
“Ship On The Desert” situated outside of the canyon. Pratt knew very well that this place was once an ancient sea, and I believe that he was one of its great captains, at least in present day times. The Pratts lived in McKittrick Canyon until around 1960. When it came time for him to move for health reasons, he wanted the place preserved in its original condition, so
Pratt offered to donate his holdings to the Federal Government on the condition of its designation as a National Park. With the support of Interior Secretary Stewart Udall and many others including Texas legislators and philanthropists, the adjacent acreage was purchased from J.C. Hunter, and the
Congressional resolution creating the Guadalupe Mountains National Park was signed into law in 1966 by Texas-born President Lyndon Johnson. The park was finally
established in 1972, and Wallace Pratt died in 1974, satisfied that his favorite place on Earth would be protected and enjoyed by future generations.
The Ranger on duty at the cabin was a volunteer, who was retired and lived most of the year in Arlington, Texas. He used to live at Pratt Lodge during peak season before the plumbing stopped working. Now he makes the 2 mile walk to the cabin every day to open the place up for visitors. He said that he loved the Canyon, and over the years, he had walked all of the 90 miles of trails in the Park. Like its first owner, he seemed to prefer it to any other place on Earth. Now he is the owner, so am I, and so are you. Establishing the National Parks truly was one of
America's best ideas.
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