By Bill Pumford, Image from the Russ Keller Collection

TITLE: COTTAGE GROVE STORE AND CAFÉ: In 1925 O.L. Papineau built some cabins and a lodge at Burnt Mill Flat which he named Cottage Grove Resort. Soon after, Papineau sold his interest in the property to Vincent Ganahl for $40,000 which was supposed to have included money for construction of 10 cabins. As a side note, it was Vincent’s brother Ernest who greatly expanded the well-known Ganahl family lumber company in California. In 1928 cabins could be rented with or without housekeeping. By early 1930 the resort included the store/café, this week’s image, 35 cabins, and an expanded lodge which included rooms for rent. The latest cabins constructed had a bathroom, kitchen, and a bedroom. By the 1940s the property was being referred to as Cottage Grove Cabins more often than the Cottage Grove Resort. As in many commercial facilities in the mountains the Cottage Grove area had its share of gambling and slot machines. In the 1949 survey two machines were listed with the Cottage Grove Cabins and one machine with the Cottage Grove Café. In 1951 the smaller cabins were rented for up to $5 per day, whereas the largest cabins went for $15 per day. In 1953 the Cottage Grove Resort was leased to Konrad Schwanke who immediately started renovations of the main building and several of the cabins. According to Nancy Taylor, when she arrived in the Cottage Grove area in the 1950s the café still existed but there was no longer any store in the same building. The building still exists today. In 1955 the primary road through the area, Burnt Mill Canyon Road, was changed to the current Cottage Grove Road. By 1956 the property had transitioned to the Arrowpines Baptist Camp. The rest of the area history was documented a couple of months ago by Ken Brafman in a Mountain Mileposts column about the Arrowhead Science Camp.