The Willow Prairie Cabin was built in 1924 by a Forest Service road crew that was constructing a highway from Butte Falls to Fish Lake.

Because the forest roads were not well developed, it was impractical for workers to make a daily round-trip from Butte Falls to the remote Willow Prairie construction site.

To facilitate work at the sites, the road crew used the Willow Prairie Cabin as their base-camp from 1924 until the highway was finished in 1926.

[2][3] When the road was completed, the Forest Service began using the cabin as a barracks to house fire crews assigned to patrol the Willow Prairie area.

In the early 1990s, the Forest Service built 19 miles of interconnecting horse trails in the Willow Prairie area.

In 1991, the Willow Prairie Campground was converted into a horse camp and the cabin was opened to the public as a rental unit.

[1] The Willow Prairie Cabin is located in a remote area of the Butte Falls Ranger District in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.

To protect the Willow Prairie meadow, riders are required to stay on marked trails, and horses must be kept in a corral when not being ridden.

Among the bird common to Willow Prairie meadow and the surrounding forest are sandhill cranes, great blue herons, Canada geese, red-tailed hawks, and a wide variety of ducks.