County considers moving Jorgensen Cabin to Gunnison

Heli house drop?

Anyone with property on the market knows you practically have to give a house away these days. And that’s just what Butch Clark is trying to do. But his property has something most others don’t: it is historic and sitting in the middle of what could become public federal land.

Clark and his wife, Judy, have offered to trade their 960-acre in-holding in the Fossil Ridge Recreation Area with the Forest Service for something more accessible to a working population where an energy-efficient affordable housing community can be built.
The county likes the idea and so does the Forest Service, which would be able to complete federal ownership of the area with a land swap. What the Forest Service doesn’t want is the log-built Jorgensen Cabin, finished around 1938, sitting on the property.
In a letter to the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners, Clark’s attorney, Luke Danielson, said a land exchange would be “more attractive [for the Forest Service] if there is no cabin on the property. They simply lack the funds to maintain it in its current location.”
Danielson described the building as “not some rustic cabin, but a very solid and well preserved 1,126-square-foot building with an oak floor. It is where Mr. Jorgensen, a local political figure of some note, entertained visiting politicians and state leaders [like then Governor Daniel Thornton] and it has a considerable history.”
Beside the cabin is a three-seat outhouse with pictures pinned up inside of movie stars from the 1930s. Clark would like to see the outhouse go with the cabin, if possible. The cabin itself, which Clark says was built for entertaining, has most of the original picture windows, a big brick fireplace and a huge world map with period pictures of FDR and Hitler.
The cabin’s history has sparked the interest of Gunnison’s Pioneer Museum, which has shown an interest in keeping the cabin if it can be transported to their property. But the issue of moving the building is an entirely different challenge.
Danielson’s letter says an “expert” who looked at the project thought moving the cabin in pieces by truck would be too expensive. “On the other hand,” the letter says, “it seems that the building might be suitable to be lifted in one piece [except for the chimney] by one of the large newer generation cargo helicopters.”
Director of Public Works Marlene Crosby remembers early in her career the Army was able to coordinate a training exercise with a project to move a bridge from near the Royal Gorge to Lost Canyon. The idea of finding a way to air-drop the cabin kind of took off.
Clark even thinks the way the cabin is built, on a foundation, would allow a lifting harness to be secured around the structure relatively easily, after the fireplace, chimney and windows are removed.
But while the British aerospace company QinetiQ will be returning to the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport again this summer to conduct testing on a helicopter, airport manager John DeVore says it’s a Sea King surveillance helicopter and doesn’t have nearly enough power to lift a building.
“[Boeing’s] Osprey [that was here last summer] couldn’t lift a cabin,” DeVore says. “They would need a twin-rotor Huey or something that is made for transport.”
But Clark still thinks the idea has some merit and is happy that the project planners have some time to consider all of their options.
“There’s plenty of time,” Clark says. “One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that it’s good to have the time you need. There’s a panic sometimes in a small community when a great big project comes in. People think it all has to happen right away. We don’t have that here.”