Here’s a news item from the Associated Press: BOISE, Idaho (AP) — U.S. Forest Service officials say they plan to restore a log cabin in west-central Idaho they hoped to get listed on the National Register of Historic Places before a vandal caused extensive damage. Payette National Forest spokesman Brian Harris said Wednesday that Trapper Cabin has been shored from last summer's destruction and officials hope to use restitution money for restoration work. Twenty-two-year-old Jason Reed of Boise on Tuesday pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to destruction of government property. He's agreed to pay $32,000 in restitution. The cabin about 22 miles north of McCall was built in 1936 and initially used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to control predators. Reed broke windows and used a cable attached to an ATV to pull out logs and cause a partial collapse. The U.S. Attorney's Office says the destruction was an act of vandalism with no anti-government motivation.

I spoke with Harris this afternoon and he said the forest is seeking a grant through the Idaho State Historical Society to stabilize the structure, figuring it’ll take time before the restitution funds show up. “It’s a historic structure,” he said. “Before it was ruined, it was eligible for historical designation, and we were working through that process. … We take the responsibility of preserving it, maintaining it there.”

The historic cabin was one of two constructed in 1936 by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for predator control efforts; it was built in the Rocky Mountain log cabin style, using peeled lodgepole pine logs and mud chinking. It is the only cabin in the Payette National Forest built in that style and from that era.

Reed is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 14 in federal court for destruction of government property, a Class A misdemeanor, and could face up to a year in prison and fines. The photo at top shows the cabin before the vandalism; the photo at right shows it after.

UPDATE: I delayed posting this item yesterday because even after reading the court documents in the case, it seemed to me that a very big question was left unanswered: Why? Why did this young man try to destroy this historic cabin? Was he trying to steal the logs? Was there some land-use dispute involved? What was going on? This morning I spoke with the federal prosecutor, Christian Nafzger. "We really don't know," he said. However, he noted that Reed was 21 at the time, and apparently was with other males his age, though he's the only one who's been charged at this point. "There doesn't seem to be any motive other than just being destructive for destructive's sake," Nafzger said.