Recently, there was an inquiry about the privately owned cabins at Juniper Lake inside Lassen Volcanic National Park that were destroyed by the Dixie Fire. For those not aware, there were eight cabins, seven which were destroyed.
When the park was created in 1916, inside its boundaries were numerous privately owned properties, that the park would spend decades to purchase. Even Manzanita Lake was not only privately owned it was not even inside the original park boundary, but that is another story.
In 1917, C.P. and Cora Snell created a subdivision at Juniper Lake that contained 1500 lots. While lots were sold, only a a few individuals built cabins. This was due in part, that the lake’s high elevation, the summer season was relatively short, typically June to early September and a rough road did not help matters.
After years of stalled negotiations with the Snells, the park in 1955 filed a condemnation for their unsold lots and their Juniper Lake Resort. It went fairly smooth. In 1959, the park filed a another condemnation suit against the owners of the unimproved lots. While the owners protested, eventually the park prevailed. So the only lots left at Juniper Lake were those with cabins, with a goal of a possibility the park would acquire one day. The park had an opportunity to purchase a cabin there, which they did and was used by park personnel and it was one of the cabins destroyed.
Just want to say your information is slighted and somewhat in areas false. But I will address the ‘elephant in the room’. The Kelley cabin, which had been sold back to the park and slated for destruction was one of the cabins destroyed in the fire. It is one of the cabins referenced, but was not in use by park personnel. It was gutted, no hook ups, and the park had fallen trees around the cabin to try to mask its presence.
Yes, the Park Service did some ‘sneaky’ and ‘shady’ methods to get the land and even the cabins that were burned is suspicious. More attempts by the NPS to ‘condemn’ and ‘take’ the land. Former Park Superintendent Jim Richardson lied to the BOS for Lassen County on the amount of use at Juniper Lake. All of which did backfire on him leaving him having to answer.