Kirkwood Lake Tract

Lake Kirkwood sits in a granite bowl carved by glaciers at roughly 7,600 feet in the Sierra Nevada, within the Eldorado National Forest. Around its shore stand 24 wood-framed summer cabins, most built in the 1930s and 1940s under Forest Service recreation residence policy, which called for humble, rustic buildings in forest colors. A 1930 survey of the area identified a campground, a Girl Scout camp and a cabin tract. Access is by footpath and non-motorized boat, since there is no road around the lake and motorboats are banned. Materials were originally boated or rafted across to each site. Cabins sit on pier and post foundations, with shiplap, tongue and groove or board and batten siding, and many are perched on or among large granite outcroppings. Each has an outhouse because septic systems are not possible. A rating system found 20 of the 24 cabins, or 83 percent, retained their historic integrity, qualifying the tract as a district for its recreation history and Rustic design.