MONROE, La. (AP) — A historic cabin in Ouachita Parish sits virtually hidden, all but completely abandoned and succumbing to nature.

Sharing a small rural clearing in the southern part of the parish with two nearby 20th-century homes, the Rawls Cabin is the rarest surviving example of a single pen log house.

The cabin represents the continuing prominence of the Upland South Culture in the area and may be one of the parish’s oldest surviving log structures.

Log buildings once dominated the countryside of western Ouachita Parish. When the Rawls Cabin was first listed on the National Register for Historic Places on Aug. 9, 1991, log buildings were relatively rare. Of the 142 rural buildings that were recorded in the parish’s Historical Structures Survey as being at least 50 years old, only 14 were constructed of logs.

The two-room structure consists of a single log pen approximately 16 square feet and a smaller frame lean-to attached at the rear. A plank door connects the two spaces. A shed roof is attached to the façade. The sills forming the foundation are hewn in a rectangular shape and are resting on stone and wooden piers. The pen itself is constructed of round logs split down the center.

The smaller shed room is sheathed on the exterior with sawn weatherboards. Architectural evidence suggests that the two rooms were built at the same time. The pen’s low-pitched roof has a deep overhang on the side, clapboarded gables, and an off-center plank door pierces the façade. Additional exterior doors are located on the pen’s east side and the shed room’s rear wall. The home retains its original wood plank flooring.

To the rear of the cabin is a small log structure which has the size and appearance of a root cellar.

Despite moderate changes over the years since its construction including the replacement of its original shingled roof to one of corrugated sheet metal, the cabin retains the architectural features that make it important.

Built in 1883 by Abner Rawls, the cabin was purchased in 1911 by the McKeel family, some of whom occupied the house until 1976. The property is currently owned by Davis Bamburg, according to the Ouachita Parish Tax Assessor’s Office records.

Although log structures would have been erected from the date of the first arrival of Upland South settlers, none appear to have survived from the early period. With its construction date, the Rawls Cabin pre-dates all of the parish’s other log buildings, most of which were built in the 1890s or after 1900.