HistoriCorps partnership preserves idyllic landmarks
ARIZONA—Eager volunteers gathered at the muddy base of the imposing, grand Cathedral Rock wearing shiny hard hats and towing construction materials. They were gathered to help restore several historic structures at Crescent Moon Ranch, a popular ranch established in the late 1800s by cattleman John Lee. Many members of the group organized by HistoriCorps were retirees who had worked for the USDA Forest Service or similar organizations. They were already aware of both the unprecedented need for historic restoration on the site as well as the awe-inspiring beauty of the surrounding landscape. Even under cloudy, tumultuous skies, the red rocks glowed with fervor as the protruding Cathedral Rock stood a silent sentinel over the project.
This land was historically inhabited by Apache, Western Apache, Hopitutskwa, Pueblos and Hohokam nations. The ranch was first homesteaded by Prescott cattleman John Lee in 1880 and originally called OK Ranch. Lee added an irrigation ditch, orchard and garden. Since those days, the ranch has changed hands frequently, and the orchard provided apples and peaches to the communities of Jerome and Flagstaff.
When the Forest Service and Trust for Public Lands acquired the ranch in 1980, many of the buildings on site still had agricultural equipment inside, much of which is still visible today to the curious passer-by. The ranch buildings, structures and agricultural fields purvey decades of agrarian use from the 1880s through the mid-1900s. Crescent Moon Ranch was added to the National Register of Historic Places in April 2021, the first such designation by the Coconino National Forest in over 20 years.
Throughout the last week of September, the team worked diligently to restore the hay barn, which had been repurposed to hold maintenance materials. The volunteers also renewed the building’s siding, frame and roof. Other projects included restoring the water wheelhouse, blacksmith shop and main barn. They used logs and building materials gathered from thinning projects around the Coconino National Forest to repair walls and roofs on the historic structures, exemplifying reuse and recycling in a beautiful way. They preserved historic juniper pillars in the barn area as well. Together, the team brought Crescent Moon Ranch into a new phase.
This was not the first time historical restorations had been completed on the site. In 2016, HistoriCorps organized volunteers from the general public, who worked alongside youth from Arizona Conservation Corps to replace and re-install juniper pergolas at Crescent Moon Cabin, rehabilitate masonry waist walls supporting the pergolas, rehabilitate window screens and build doors, and repaint the southeast screened-in porch.
HistoriCorps has teamed up with the Forest Service and other organizations to conduct similar projects around the country. Additional projects in Arizona this year include restoring the Los Burros Barn and Water Canyon Ranger Station on Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.
Previous projects in the state include work on the Mormon Lake Guard Station (original Mormon Lake Ranger Cabin), Buck Mountain Lookout and Brolliar Park Cabin on Coconino National Forest; the Palace Station on Prescott National Forest; Pinedale Ranger Station on Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest; and Canelo Hills Guard Station on Coronado National Forest.
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