| Rich Cabins | |||
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| Director | Katie Clardy (2010) | ||
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Rich Cabins is a camp managed by the Boy Scouts of America's Philmont Scout Ranch, a backpacking reservation in northern New Mexico. Rich Cabins is located on a portion of the Vermejo Park Ranch, which is owned by Ted Turner. The Rich family lived at this location from the late 1880s to the 1920s.
The cabin was built by the Rich family beginning in 1880, when the eldest brother Joseph immigrated from the Tirol province of Austria. Eventually, all four Rich brothers (Joseph, John, David, and Louis) lived there. The family ran a successful cattle ranch which stretched down-canyon to where Ponil is located today. The family left abruptly in 1926, reportedly due to one of the brother's gambling debts. At that time, they sold their brand (a heart outline) to the Chase family. The Chases use the heart to this day.[1]
Rich Cabins was part of the area that burned during the Ponil Complex Fire of 2002. A combination of back-burning and defensible space cutting by the Philmont and Cimarron Volunteer Fire Departments saved the cabin, barn, and tool shed. The chicken coop and one latrine were lost in the fire, but have since been rebuilt.
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The program here is homesteading and includes: historical first-person interpretive cabin tours, gardening, wood working (some years), catching chickens, milking cows, and various projects that the staff may be working on to improve the camp. There is also a commissary where trail food can be picked up and white gas can be purchased. As of 2007 Rich Cabins has an official evening music program where campers can hear traditional songs from regions that the Rich family would have traveled through from Austria.