Horace Baker emigrated from Illinois along the Oregon Traill in 1846 and married fellow emigrant Jane Hatten in 1852. The Bakers claimed 640 acres and built this cabin by 1856. It is one of the oldest log structures in the state and the only known log cabin with a cantilever supported loft and exterior stairway built in Oregon during the covered wagon era. Horace Baker was an entrepreneur and jack-of-all-trades who farmed, built and installed wooden pumps in the local area, and in 1872 built and operated a slack-cable ferry on the Clackamas River. Rock quarried from this land by Baker during the 1870s was used to build the Willamette Falls Locks near Oregon City, Portland's Pioneer Courthouse, the Portland Hotel, and the Tillamook Lighthouse. The cabin was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Photo: Barry Swackhamer

Photo: Barry Swackhamer

Clackamas, Oregon · USA