Brick Pile Ranch and Cabin on Glade Creek
between Little Applegate and Wagner Gap
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Brick Pile was used year round by many Talent residents, this hard-to-see photocopy
shows Jim Briner and some of the Bagley family staying at the cabin. |
The original cabin is gone but if you go to Talent Historical Society in Talent, Oregon, you'll find the surviving old wooden door with many brand marks burned into it. It appears that branding the door was either a pass-time or a way to sign in or register that one had visited the cabin.
The story of the Brick Pile Ranch goes something like this:
The cabin was built near Glade creek on the Applegate side of Wagner Gap. Someone got the notion to use the cinnabar and clay from the area to make bricks. Though the bricks were great, getting them to market was pretty impossible from so far up in the mountains. Thus the bricks remained in a pile unsold and gave the name of the Ranch. I am not sure who built it or owned it first, but it has a long association with the Beeson family. [Ellis Beeson said it was built in 1903 by Emmett Beeson] The cabin was used as a stopping place for prospectors, hunters, and ranchers. Emmett Beeson's brother-in-law, Big Jim Briner, mentions staying at Brick Pile many times in his diary. [for more information about Jim Briner see this blog
http://wrightarchives.blogspot.com/2011/01/diaries-in-jackson-county-or.html ]
Some time in the late 1960s or early 1970s a cow got stuck inside the cabin and died leaving a horrid smell behind. When Dan Beeson and his uncle Ellis Beeson went to inspect the cabin, they decided the only thing to do was to burn it down. This they did - carefully taking the door off first and hopefully gathering any other removable artifacts that went with it.
Please let me know if you have stories or photos of Brick Pile - I would love to hear from you to compare notes. Contact me at
jan@wrightarchives.com
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This is a full frontal view of the cabin taken about 1920 showing Edna Wells Beeson in overalls when she and her husband, Elton Beeson visited Jim Briner at Brick Pile Ranch. Notice the unusual angle of the chimney. Most cabins had the chimney attached to the outside wall, this one was enclosed inside the cabin and of course, made of brick. Photo courtesy of Charlotte Beeson Toon, daughter of Elton and Edna Beeson.
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Jim Briner at Brick Pile in 1920 when
Elton and Edna Beeson visited him. Photo
courtesy of Charlotte Beeson Toon.
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Taken in 1956 by Camp Fire Girls from Talent, Brick Pile looks a bit run down but
still standing. Photo courtesy Talent Historical Society
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April Burnette and Linda Hamilton, Camp Fire Girls from Talent, Oregon
hiked to Brick Pile in August 1956. The porch roof had fallen but the cabin itself was
in pretty good shape. This photo is on file at Talent Historical Society
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