Camp Phoenix is a sixteen-acre plot of land located along the western edge of Baxter State Park in Northeast Piscataquis, Maine. Originally a sporting camp, the cabins are now privately owned.
Camp Phoenix is a sixteen-acre plot of land located along the western edge of Baxter State Park in Northeast Piscataquis, Maine. Originally a sporting camp, the cabins are now privately owned.
Fifty-four year-old Albert McLain and his thirty year-old son Will built a trapper's cabin near the outlet of Nesowadnehunk (Sourdnahunk) lake in 1895. [1] A year later they abandoned that and built a "sporting camp"—a building with a kitchen and dining room on the ground floor and lodgings on the second—on the east shore of the lake about a mile north of the outlet. They named it Camp Phoenix. By 1898 newspapers were beginning to take notice of the quality of the fishing and hunting there. [2] By 1900 Albert was running a sporting camp in Chesuncook township, Piscataquis county, and Will McLain was working as a common laborer about 18 miles away in Township 4, Range 10, of the same county.
Charles Daisey bought McLain's building from him sometime between 1900 and 1904 and built eight cabins close to the lake shore using logs laid horizontally, probably between 1910 and 1920. During the 1920s, he worked to keep the resort isolated in order to preserve its rustic appeal for the loyal clientele he was building. Though a road was built from the town of Greenville northward toward the lake in 1922, it stopped about five miles away. [3] He built his own private, primitive road to the public road and locked a chain across where they met. A telephone shed built there allowed guests to call for admittance and garages were ready there to house their cars. [4] At first, a horse-drawn buckboard would pick up the guests and bring them to the lodge but later this was upgraded to beach wagons. Charles himself was forward-thinking enough to buy an REO Speedwagon (the earliest form of pickup truck) in the year the road was built, in order to pick up supplies from town but motorized vehicles were forbidden to guests, including boats. [5] The only watercraft he allowed were canoes built by his son Arnold and only fly fishing was allowed. Arnold, who would make a career of the camp, began replacing some of the cabins with ones built of logs placed vertically in the 1920s and 1930s. In October 1931 a fire that began around the stovepipe in his room in the main lodge burned it to the ground, but he was able to build a new lodge, of vertically-placed logs, before the next season's guests arrived.
When Charles bought the McLain building, the land did not come with it. This he leased over the next three decades from a succession of owners and by 1937 he had saved up enough money to buy the twenty acres under the camp, preserving it from being merged into Baxter State Park in the coming decades. However, locals were not pleased with Charles' chain keeping them away from a public lake. By 1942 public pressure forced him to remove his protective barrier, and when people began running motorboats on the lake he retired. Arnold ran the camp for another thirteen years, but he sold it in 1955.
George and Beryl Emerson bought the camp in that transaction. They refurbished the shopworn cabins, painted them and the lodge red and dug a lagoon to shelter the motorboats now in use on the lake. They sold the camp in 1971 when Baxter State Park became more popular as a public recreation area, drawing in more of the middle classes and ending the era of a camp for chauffer-driven elites. A series of owners bought and sold the camp during the 1970s and 1980s. Charles Daisey's insistence on keeping the lake isolated and protected from modern machinery and restricting fishing to fly fishing only began a tradition that kept the lake such a favorable environment for its native brook trout that the State of Maine found the lake did not need stocking with hatchery fish and recommended maintaining it that way.
The last owners of the 1980s sold the camp and a group of developers wanted to replace the cabins with condominiums. However, the motorized equipment necessary for the construction were too tall and wide to legally travel the roads passing through Baxster State Park, thwarting the plan before it started. Instead, the local building regulations committee issued permits for individual seasonal residences. An owners' association formed which sought to preserve the quality of the natural environment around the lake. [1]
Phoenix sits at the southeast shore of Nesowadnehunk lake, the largest fly fishing-only lake in Maine. [6] On all its other sides it is bordered by Baxter State Park.
Mount Chase is a town in Penobscot County, Maine, United States. The population was 187 at the 2020 census.
Petit Jean State Park is a 3,471-acre (1,405 ha) park in Conway County, Arkansas managed by the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. It is located on top of Petit Jean Mountain next to the Arkansas River in the area between the Ouachita Mountains and the Ozark Plateaus.
Mount Katahdin is the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Maine at 5,269 feet (1,606 m). Named Katahdin, which means "Great Mountain", by the Penobscot Native Americans, it is within Northeast Piscataquis, Piscataquis County, and is the centerpiece of Baxter State Park. It is a steep, tall massif formed from a granite intrusion weathered to the surface. The flora and fauna on the mountain are typical of those found in northern New England, with the summit hosting fragile and endangered alpine tundra.
Natchez Trace State Park is a state park located in western Tennessee, in the United States. It was named for the historic Natchez Trace woodland path, an important wilderness trail during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The park covers more than 48,000 acres (190 km2) and features several wilderness trails, camping, horseback riding, and waterfront activities.
Baxter State Park is a large wilderness area permanently preserved as a state park in Northeast Piscataquis, Piscataquis County in north-central Maine, United States. It is in the North Maine Woods region and borders the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument on the east.
F.J. McLain State Park is a 443-acre (179 ha) public recreation area on the Keweenaw Peninsula in Houghton County, Michigan. The state park is located on M-203 halfway between Hancock and Calumet. It is about 10 miles (16 km) from each city. The park's offshore sights include sunsets over Lake Superior and the art deco–style Keweenaw Waterway Upper Entrance Light.
The North Maine Woods is the northern geographic area of the state of Maine in the United States. The thinly populated region is overseen by a combination of private individual and private industrial owners and state government agencies, and is divided into 155 unincorporated townships within the NMW management area. There are no towns or paved roads.
Keystone State Park is a 1,200-acre (486 ha) Pennsylvania state park in Derry Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in the United States. Located off U.S. Route 22 near New Alexandria, the park opened in 1945. Its main attraction is the man-made 78-acre (32 ha) Keystone Lake. The park also has extensive picnic areas and several miles of hiking trails.
Drakesbad Guest Ranch, also known simply as Drakesbad, is a resort near Chester, California. It is located on Hot Springs Creek at the head of Warner Valley, inside Lassen Volcanic National Park.
The Wort Hotel was built in downtown Jackson, Wyoming, United States by brothers John and Jess Wort, who were significant figures in the transformation of the economy of Jackson Hole from ranching to tourism. The somewhat Tudor-style building was the first luxury hotel in Jackson. The two-story building features brick facing, with half-timbering and stucco on the second floor and a series of gables facing the street.
The West Branch Penobscot River is a 117-mile-long (188 km) tributary of the Penobscot River through the North Maine Woods in Maine. The river is also known as Abocadneticook, Kahgognamock, and Kettegwewick.
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The Holzwarth Historic District comprises a series of cabins built by the Holzwarth family as a guest ranch inholding within the boundaries of Rocky Mountain National Park, at Grand Lake, Colorado. The Holzwarths made their homestead in the Kawuneeche Valley in 1917, two years after the establishment of the park, and received a patent on the homestead in 1923. Guest ranch use began in 1919 and continued until the ranch was purchased by The Nature Conservancy in 1974. The property was transferred to the National Park Service in 1975 for incorporation into the park. The district comprises a number of rustic cabins on the Colorado River. Operations existed on both sides of the river, first known as the Holzwarth Trout Ranch and later as the Never Summer Ranch. All but Joe Fleshut's cabin have been removed from the east side of the river.
A sporting camp is an establishment that provides lodging, meals and guide service for hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation and usually consists of a set of “camps” or cabins accompanied by a main lodge. Some also offer primitive outpost cabins. Traditionally found in forests and on lakes in remote locations throughout the state of Maine, sporting camps are a popular lodging destination that have offered a unique outdoors experience to sportsmen across New England and throughout the United States for over a century.
Parmachenee Lake is on the Magalloway River near the Canadian border on the western edge of Maine. The lake was named for the daughter of Native American chief Metalluk, and is best known for the Gilded Age Parmachenee Club. The Magalloway River headwaters enter the north end of the lake in Parmachenee township, and the lake extends south into Lynchtown township where it overflows 2 miles (3.2 km) upstream of Aziscohos Reservoir.
Bearnstow is a summer camp on Parker Pond in Mount Vernon, Maine. The camp offers weeklong and day programs for adults and children, with an emphasis on appreciation of nature through the arts and sciences. Founded in 1946, the camp occupies 65 acres (26 ha) on the east side of the pond, and is centered on the former Spruce Point Camps, whose facilities, built in the 1920s and 1930s, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Brooks Lake Lodge, also known as the Brooks Lake Hotel and Diamond G Ranch, as well as the Two-Gwo-Tee Inn, is a recreational retreat in Fremont County, Wyoming near Dubois in the upper Wind River valley. The complex was built in 1922 to accommodate travelers coming to Yellowstone National Park on U.S. Route 287 from central Wyoming. The buildings are mainly of log construction with Craftsman style detailing.
The CM Ranch and Simpson Lake Cabins are separate components of a single historic district associated with Charles Cornell Moore, a Fremont County, Wyoming dude ranch operator. The CM ranch, named after Moore, operated as a dude ranch from 1920 to 1942 and resumed operating in 1945. The Simpson Lake Cabins were purchased by Moore in 1931 and were operated as a hunting camp, continuing until 1997 when the CM ranch was sold to new owners and the Simpson Lake property was taken over by the U.S. Forest Service.. The sites are separated by 13 miles (21 km).
The Grand View Lodge is a resort on Gull Lake in Nisswa, Minnesota, United States. Established in 1916, it has grown to include seven restaurants, a spa, two golf courses, a conference center, and over 200 guest cabins. Two of the complex's buildings were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 for having local significance in the themes of architecture and entertainment/recreation. They were nominated for displaying some of north-central Minnesota's most elaborate rustic log architecture, and for the older building's status as one of the region's earliest resort lodges.
The Glacier Lodge is a campsite in Big Pine, California in the Sierra Nevada. It is located in Big Pine Canyon, below Kid Mountain. The area is popular with wilderness enthusiasts and offers fishing, camping, hiking, cycling, and other activities. Big Pine Creek runs alongside the road. It operates under a special use permit with the United States Forest Service.