BOULDER — More than 150 people were in attendance on Saturday, July 6 for the celebration of Big Sandy Lodge’s addition to the National Register of Historic Places. The property at the southern end of the Wind River Mountain Range and 44 miles from Boulder is the 23rd location in Sublette County to be added to the National Register of Historic Places, joining 87,232 other “cultural resources worthy of preservation” around the country. The National Register was authorized under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, part of a program to “coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate and protect historic and archeological resources,” according to its website.

Attendees enjoyed a self-guided walking tour of the Big Sandy Lodge, cabins and grounds with posters explaining the property’s history.

During Saturday’s special ceremony, Clint Gilchrist, President of the Sublette County Historic Preservation Board, presented a plaque from the National Register of Historic Places to the Morris family, including Kay, Samuel, DeWitt, Jason and Crissy.

The Sublette County Visitors’ Center gifted the Morris family with a framed poster about Finis Mitchell, who first established the site as a fishing camp in 1930. Mitchell was one of the first to stock fish in hundreds of high-elevation lakes in the Wind River Mountains, earning the nickname “Lord of the Winds.”

In the 1950s, the camp was purchased and further developed by the Thomas family, who added the log lodge and several small log cabins to operate a guest ranch. It has been continuously operated as a guest ranch since that time. Today, the Morris family offers stays in the cabins, horseback trail rides, guided hunting and fishing trips, and packing-in supplies for back-country hikers. The lodge is open seasonally from summer through fall for hunting and offers the closest services to the Cirque of the Towers area within the Wind River Mountains. A generator provides electricity to the lodge. There is no cell phone or internet service at the Lodge. Located at 9,100 feet in elevation and bordering the Bridger Wildnerness area, the Big Sandy Lodge now operates under a special use permit from the Bridger-Teton National Forest Pinedale Ranger District.

For more information, visit their website www.big-sandy-lodge.com, call 307-749-1401, or email bigsandylodgewyoming@gmail.com.