Boulder Cabin
NW of Cache, Cache, OKBefore Europeans reached the territory which is now Oklahoma, the Wichita people inhabited the area containing the Wichita Mountains. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Kiowa and Comanche tribes were moved to a reservation in this same area. As it became evident that the frontier was closing, white settlers increased their demands for the opening of Indian lands. This portion of the Wichita Mountains was not broken up for settlement, however, as the leases of the grazing land to Texas cattlemen prevented this.
At the turn of the century the efforts of the Oklahoma City Commercial Club, with its many influential civic leaders, persuaded the Oklahoma congressional delegation to support the conservation endeavors for the Wichita Mountains. The area was proclaimed the Wichita Forest Reserve in 1901, and a National Game Preserve in 1905.
Camp Boulder was established by the late A.D. Lawrence and his family at the foot of Eagle Mountain in 1911. Frank Rush, Sr., Superintendent of the Wichita National Forest and Game Preserve, granted a permit to the Lawrence's to build a structure. "We built the cabin about 1912." Arthur Lawrence recalls, "Dad hired a mason, and my brother and I hauled the cobblestones in a wheelbarrow."
There was no road to the cabin at that time so Mr. Lawrence promised the boys, Arthur and his brother, the late Robert S., that he would buy a car if they would build a road. They picked their way down "a line of least resistance," establishing a road over which the pavement now runs to Camp Boulder.
After Mr. Lawrence died in 1922, the family traded their permit to two other Lawton men, Ray Babbit and Sam I. McElhoes. The new owners kept the permit and enjoyed the cabin for several years, ultimately agreeing to relinquish it to the government with the stipulation that the cabin and camp could be used by the Boy Scouts. The agreement was made, and the Boulder Cabin and Camp Boulder are known to generations of Scouts, Boy and Girl, as well as a myriad of other groups and organizations.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1981.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.