HOMESTEADING RESOURCES
OF ESCALANTE CANYON
DELTA COUNTY, DELTA
CAPTAIN SMITH’S CABIN Located on the Captain Smith’s Cabin property are two cabins in fair condition, as well as a root cellar. Built in 1911, the main cabin is a one-story, one-room building with stone walls. Captain Smith chose a huge fin of rock for site of his cabin, half of it buried in talus. The slab of rock makes up the fourth wall of the main cabin. Smith dug out a level floor, and squared up stones for the three other walls. A tombstone cutter by trade, he carved niches for his guns and used rock shelves as his bed. A small “kiva” like area is located in the northwest corner of the building,that was assumed to be used as an area to dry meat. All four walls of the cabin are random coursed, rough cut sandstone, finished with an adobe mortar and stucco. The steeply pitched, front gabled roof and the gabled ends are finished in wood shingles, and there is a wood framed door opening on the west side, and a small wood framed window opening on the south side.
These three Homesteading Sites of Escalante Canyon are all unique to the canyon area, not only for their manner of construction, but for the historical elements attached to them. All three of the following present themselves as community resources in which local citizens can relate to their history.
The construction is very unique to Escalante Canyon, which is known more for its traditional log cabin construction than carved sandstone structures. Because his cabin was so small, Smith built a “bunkhouse” for his guests; for many years the guest cabin provided a welcome stopover for those traveling in this remote area. There is even a secret room dug into the earth behind the cabin! Unfortunately, vandalism and deterioration of Captain Smith’s Cabin have increased. Major cracks in the exterior wall continue to expand, the doors and windows are missing, the interior walls have begun to crumble, leaving piles of rubble, and the cedar roof needs to be replaced.
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