BLACK HILLS HIDEAWAYS: PRIVATE CABINS ON PUBLIC LAND BY SETH TUPPER Scattered around the Black Hills, tucked away in the forests and meadows, there’s a curiosity: privately owned vacation cabins on public land. One of the oldest is the Durst cabin. A logging family built the cabin in a meadow along Flynn Creek around 1911. Eight years later, Custer State Park was born. Its boundaries soon wrapped around the vintage cabin, with its dark wood walls, screened-in porch and outhouse. Today, the cabin still stands within the park. And the cabin still belongs to Durst descendants. They own the building and use it as a private gathering place, even though they don’t own the land.
The goal of the programs, as explained by Matthew Jurak, a recreation and lands staff officer for the Black Hills National Forest, was to attract visitors and build support for public lands. “I think that was really the intent all along, to have a personal connection with the natural environment and the forest itself,” Jurak said. “So, for a Forest Service employee looking back to the early 1900s, I think that was pretty progressive. They were looking ahead.”
Cabins are passed between generations
When the programs ended in the 1960s, existing cabins were allowed to stay. Nearly 200 remain – about 35 in Custer State Park, and almost 160 across the million-acre Black Hills National Forest.
Neither the park nor the forest plans to allow any Lloyd Marsden, of Sheridan, Wyoming, is a great- new cabins on public land, so the owners of the old cabins are an exclusive club. They pay annual leases grandson of the original owners. He said seven ranging from about $400 to $2,000. They can’t live generations have ties to the place. in the cabins full-time, they’re not allowed to rent “Ashes of several of those people have been spread the cabins out, and they have to get approval for here,” Marsden said. “So it goes a long way back, repairs and renovations. and there’s a chance to connect with those earlier Some cabins are far off the beaten path, at the generations.” end of rutted two-track trails. Many are small The Durst family isn’t the only one with a private and rustic, with plain brown exteriors. Some lack connection to public land in the Black Hills. plumbing, running water and cell-phone service. Beginning in the 1910s and ’20s, hundreds of Others have been updated with a few modern people were allowed to build cabins within the amenities. boundaries of Custer State Park and the Black Hills Continued on the next page. National Forest.
Return to Menu
