Does this building look as old as the others around you? It shouldn’t! This replica Northern Plains log cabin was built by Henry “Hank” Baker in 1977! Earning a slew of accolades during his lifetime, including master carpenter and champion rodeo cowboy, Hank Baker was born in 1907 south of the newly established city of Garrison. The log cabin before you is modeled after his birthplace and first home.

Like most of the buildings in Heritage Park, the Baker Log Cabin was moved here - it was actually first built in nearby Minot, North Dakota, where Hank and his wife, Alice, lived in their later years. Mainly because he, “just needed something to do!” Baker worked together with his friend George Nogosek to hand-notch telephone poles shipped in from Montana and constructed the frame of the cabin. Extended family then all teamed up to help with the roofing. The interior of the cabin was furnished as Hank remembered his childhood home, becoming a sort of time-capsule of the homestead days of North Dakota.

Over the course of his lifetime, Hank had been a rancher, a competitive rodeo cowboy, winning the Schomocker’s Coulee Rodeo in 1930, a livestock shipment business owner, and even a carpenter during the construction of the Garrison Dam. After a fascinating life like his, it’s no wonder that Hank Baker was inducted into the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2013 under the Pre-1940 Rodeo category. He and Alice also loved history and antiques, and so after their passing, their eight children donated the cabin to Heritage Park as a memorial to their parents and as a way to preserve the family history that Hank had found so captivating. The cabin was moved here from Minot in 1991, and the Baker family has traditionally held their reunions at the park where they can feel close to Hank and their past.