Cut Foot Sioux Ranger Station

18 ½ Miles NW of Deer River off Highway 46

Built in 1904, this one-room log structure is probably the oldest remaining ranger station in the United States. It rests at the end of the Turtle Mound portage on a campsite used centuries before any white men ever entered the region.

The station was built by two men who arrived by boat from Cass Lake with their tools and lumber for the floor and door. They cut logs at the site for the rest of the structure.

The building served as a museum for awhile and, in 1969, a protective building was put up around it. The station is in the Chippewa National Forest, the nation’s first forest reserve (created by the Morris Act of 1902).

Visitors are directed to the station from the Visitors Center on Highway 46.