The most common form of shelter for early miners in many states was the log cabin. In forested regions, logs were readily available and enabled miners to build reliable shelter in relatively short time. The following photos show many examples of these early cabins and the proud miners that built them.
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Between doing research on both mining camps and gold claims, I've run across a fair number of cabins or sites and the one thing that always amazed me was just how damned tiny they were.
I know smaller spaces take less effort to build and has less room to heat, but damn..... the huge majority of them took up less area than my little shed and in the ones that had walls still standing, there usually wasn't room for a man even back then to stand up straight without cracking his head. Many of them I'd have to bend over at the waist just to get through the entry.
What's even more amazing is that sometimes the cabin would be called home by 2 or 3 or 4 miners and all their gear.
