Above the main Timberline lodge at 7,000 feet, Silcox Hut is party central
Happy Five-Oh! Jon Tullis, Director of Marketing and Public Affair, Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood
From the Timberline Website: Midway to the summit of Mt. Hood is Timberline Lodge, a National Historic Landmark....
On June 14, 1936, at the brutal height of the Great Depression, ground was broken for a project unique in America. Timberline Lodge was built entirely by hand, inside and out, by unemployed craftspeople hired by the Federal Works Progress Administration. The building is a tribute to their skills and a monument to a government which responded not only to the physical needs of its people in a desperate time, but also to the needs of their spirits.
While the WPA provided funds and labor, the U.S. Forest Service and a private architectural consultant were responsible for design and engineering. The architects planned that the project would utilize the talents of local artists and craftsmen, working with materials of the area to express the spirit of the mountain.
Architects provided for even the tiniest decorative detail, using three themes to illustrate regional heritage: hand-hewn timbers and hand-crafted furnishings to pay tribute to early pioneers, carved wood and wrought iron designs to capture the Indian spirit, and carvings of animals and paintings of wildflowers to represent wildlife native to Mt. Hood.
