SEDONA, ARIZONA—The ruins of a log cabin estimated to be at least 100 years old were discovered near Barney Spring, on land cleared by the 21,000-acre Slide fire in Arizona. “The finding itself was very subtle. It’s a collapsed, degraded cabin related to the earliest Euro-American settlement of this rugged, remote piece of Arizona,” Jeremy Haines, a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist, told The Los Angeles Times. The cabin, which was probably destroyed by a wildfire many years ago, may have been built by Jim Barney, who kept cattle near Oak Creek, or it may have belonged to bear hunter Bear Howard, who is known to have had a cabin in front of Oak Creek Canyon. He may have also had this one at the back end. “Imagine you’re on horseback in a remote area 100-plus years ago; with very limited tools, you’re constructing your own living space,” Haines explained.
