Rediscovering home: Quartz Ranger Station

Travelers along East Mullan Road whiz by the historic Quartz Ranger Station/Guard House without a clue it is nearby.

The station is a short distance off of Mullan Road just east of Forest Grove, but is hidden from view and the entryway easy to miss.  It’s interesting that the residence, office and outbuildings so close to the road can seem so isolated. 

Neighbors wonder about the fate of the station which has long been unoccupied.  A chance encounter with a man who was from a foreign country a couple of years ago left the neighbors thinking the Forest Service had sold the property.  The man, through an interpreter, told Jackie Clark’s husband the station was his.  The Forest Service says otherwise. 

I spent some time at the station because my ex-wife’s family lived there for a time before we were married. 

Billye Ann “Toots” Bricker, proprietor of her family ranch, the Happy Hollow just to the east, relayed the story about the man and asked me if I could check on the ownership of the property.   

Kevin Farmer, Public Affairs Officer for Lolo National Forest, told me the property has not been sold and is not being considered for sale.  Why the man claimed otherwise is a mystery. 

Farmer explained the process for deciding whether to sell or raze a building includes a “variety of factors are analyzed when determining how to manage older facilities, including current need for the facility and the cost of maintenance required. The Lolo has over 200 buildings, so working through a long queue of facilities and determining what we want to do with them takes a lot of time.” 

Farmer said the public will be given notice before any decision on a piece of property is made. 

“Conveyance of a building entails a public process and compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the National Historic Preservation Act, and other laws. The public process could include public scoping, public meetings, and soliciting public comment on the proposed action. 

“If the decision is to convey a property, they are typically offered for competitive sale, but there are some non-competitive sale authorities as well. If we determine we do not want to invest in the facility and conveyance is not an option due to complicating factors or cost prohibitive, we could consider disposing of the property. This would require the same public process as selling a facility.” 

Bricker wonders if the Forest Service or anyone else has compiled a history of the station.  I will have to follow up with the Forest Service to find out. She recalls the station “hosted” a few German prisoners during World War II, where they reportedly helped reconstruct the historic Lozeau after it was moved from the St. Regis area. They were not directly military, according to her youthful memory. “The men were not under lock and key. They played baseball with my dad in the field” next to the family home.  Toots’ mom and dad would sometimes take her and her brother to the dances held at the local schoolhouses. The Germans came, but “did not get a good reception until they found out they were musicians.” 

An article in the Missoulian from 2006 reported that Walt and Jackie Robb estimated there were 10 or 12 Germans held at the station. Not much else is known about them. Toots’ father, Charlie Frey, exchanged letters with one of the men, Theo Saas, after they returned to Germany. The summer I worked at the Happy Hollow as a high school freshman, I rode back and forth with Charlie.  He loved to laugh, and I always stepped out of his little Toyota pickup feeling good. 

Forest Grove is home to the Pangea, which takes floaters down the Alberton Gorge, as well as the Forest Grove Lodge and a popular fishing access site along the Clark Fork.  

Clark, the “self-proclaimed mayor” of Forest Grove (it is not incorporated), said the fishing access site is a nice spot. . . highly popular with folks, particularly Missoulians.  Overnight camping is allowed even though the site is largely undeveloped. Clark believes the site should be limited to day use. Folks park everywhere, resulting in what she calls “an unregulated mess.” Funds are scarce anymore, but it would be nice to see the site improved. Local tourism can be an economic driver, as seen by the demand for river float trips, but some may argue we don’t want to be merely a playground for visitors. 

I want to give a shout out to the owner(s) who recently put in a nice sidewalk as part of their work on the property at 301 Fourth Ave., in Superior.  Montana Cadastral lists the owner as Glenn Jones. Little things like sidewalks say a lot about how a community feels about itself and how others view it.