This little cabin is located next to the Skagit River in a park in Rockport. It was built in the late 1800s by Tom Porter, a settler who filed a timber claim on the river; the cabin says a lot about “simpler times.”
Porter felled two large cedar trees by hand with a friend and built the cabin. In 1891 he married Mima Kerr and over time six Porter children were born in the cabin. In 1897 a flood forced the family to spend three days in the cabin’s loft as the river flowed through below. One son died in the cabin, as did Mima who died with the birth of their seventh child.
The cabin was built without nails or pegs. You can see dovetail notching that secured its corners. It was insulated with moss, clay, and newspaper. Heat came from a wood fired cook stove.