The Original Cut Foot Sioux Ranger Station, constructed in 1908 from pine logs cut on site, is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the eastern Forest Service region and the first ranger station established on the east side of the Chippewa National Forest. It was built as logging activity moved east from the Cass Lake-Bena area, and Forest Supervisor Ed Marshall selected the location and sent Horace Lydick, Billy McKinnon, and Sewell Tibbetts by boat to build it. Horace Lydick, hired as a forest guard in April 1908, became the first ranger to live and work there, with duties that included fire control, road building, and dispersal of slash across a huge, isolated area with few roads and a ranger station nearly ten miles to the northwest. His 18-year-old bride, Susan, joined him in the fall after their October 16, 1908 marriage, but the isolation was difficult, and she was sometimes left alone for days when Horace went out on fires; they returned in spring 1909 to complete the season and soon left. A new two-story log home and ranger station for ranger George Henderson was begun in 1909 and completed in 1910 on the hill by the parking lot, after which the original station became a tool shed. Henderson and assistant ranger Howard Flint marked the 10% reserved trees left as a seed source after logging, while also overseeing slash disposal, fire suppression, and road and trail construction. In 1911 the original station was converted back into a home for Howard Flint and his new bride, Elizabeth, who lived there until 1912 and later drew on her experiences there in her 1940 book The Pine Tree Shield. After 1913 the building served as a tool shed and later a garage for a district fire truck. In 1933 Ranger Gerald Horton restored it as a small museum, in 1969 a protective shell was built around it to prevent further deterioration, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, and a restoration begun in 1994 dismantled and rebuilt the cabin using Elizabeth C. Flint's description of the interior; reconstruction was completed in 1998. The site preserves an important chapter in the early history of the Chippewa National Forest and offers a glimpse of the remote conditions faced by its early managers.