Cookhouse

A cookhouse is a small building where cooking takes place. Often found at remote work camps, they complimented the bunkhouse and were usually found on ranches that employed cowboys, or loggers in a logging camp. They are a key feature of large institutions, like prisons, closed to the public.

For other uses, see Cook House.
Mystery Mine cookhouse, Monte Cristo, Washington, ca. 1894

Background

Cookhouses were a standard feature of remote work sites, as the working men (e.g. cowboys, loggers, miners, etc.) needed large amounts of food for the strenuous work they performed.[1] In logging camps, cooks were important to the morale of the workers. In some cases, each season, workers would follow a cook to the camp where they were working.[2] The cookhouse was one of the key buildings in any work site along with the bunkhouse, and tool shed.[3]

See also: Samoa Cookhouse

The use of a cookhouse was not limited to resource extraction industries. Travelling circuses also use a style of cookhouse to feed their workers and performers.[4] In the Southern United States, antebellum plantations like the Archibald Smith Plantation, or the Sion Hill estate, had a cookhouse separate from the main house,[5] to keep the main house from overheating.

Large institutions, like the Sligo Gaol also had a cookhouse to serve the needs of the institution.[6] In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps worked in many remote areas, like the Malheur National Forest in the Ochoco Mountains of eastern Oregon. The Allison Ranger Station) was expanded with two ranger residences, a fire warehouse, a gas house, a garage, a generator shed, and a cookhouse.[7]

In the Eastern Cape province, South Africa, the town of Cookhouse gets its name from a small stone house used for shelter and cooking by troops camping on the bank of this river.[8]

  • Cookhouse interior, unidentified logging camp, Pacific Northwest, circa 1900
  • Totara Estate (New Zealand), Mens Quarters & Cookhouse
  • The Ordnance Chief Officer's Cookhouse, Henriville, Boulogne, circa 1917

See also

Further reading
  • Conlin, Joseph R. (October 1979). "Old Boy, Did You Get Enough of Pie? A Social History of Food in Logging Camps" (PDF). Journal of Forest History. 23 (4): 164–185. doi:10.2307/4004469. JSTOR 4004469.

References
  1. Kanes, Candace. "Cooks and Cookees: Lumber Camp Legends". mainememory.net.
  2. "Logging Camps: The Early Years". Minnesota DNR.
  3. "Kromona Mine".
  4. Thayer, Stuart. William L. Slout (ed.). "The First Cookhouse". American Circus Anthology, Essays of the Early Years.
  5. "Archibald Smith Plantation Home". MuseumsUSA.
  6. Ridley, Chris. "Sligo Gaol (Prison)". sligotown.net.
  7. "Value Analysis presentation – Allison Ranger Station". Ochoco National Forest. Prineville, Oregon: United States Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture. November 2001.
  8. Raper, P. E. (1989). Dictionary of Southern African Place Names. Jonathan Ball Publishers. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-947464-04-2 – via Internet Archive.
  • The dictionary definition of cookhouse at Wiktionary
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