Rowley Homestead Smokehouse

Fred used this building to smoke meat. Smoking removed the moisture from the meat and allowed it to be preserved for months. Fred hunted and fished for most of his meat and occasionally slaughtered the animals on the homestead. He hung the raw meat from metal hooks near the ceiling of the building and a small fire was lit in the pit below. This fire was not intended to be hot enough to cook the meat, but burned fairly cool in order to produce a lot of smoke.

The Smoke House removes moisture from meat so homesteaders could store meat for months, likely in their root cellars. This process is similar to how jerky is made today. Fred smoked most of the meat he ate himself in order to preserve it. This meat could come from wild game in the area, – like deer, elk, turkeys, and rabbits – from fishing, or from livestock like pigs. Smoking livestock generally occurred just after the weather turned cold in the fall— Fred had less pressing tasks during the fall, so he could prepare for winter by smoking lots of meat.

The fire inside of the smokehouse was not built using the most common type of wood in this area, which is pine. Pine wood is unsuitable for smoking as it contains too much resin and emits terpinols (poisonous natural substances used to make turpentine) when burned. Instead, homesteaders used aspen wood and even corn cobs to produce a low-burning, heavy-smoking fire.

In the field below the Smoke House, across the ditch is a foundation for Fred’s pig pen. The pigs were stabled far from the house because their sty had a strong odor. Today, the pig barn is gone, just a few foundation logs remain. Fred’s pigs were likely a money-maker for him. Not all settlers in this region kept pigs, so the pig meat was likely in high demand in nearby towns.

Archives of YMCA of the Rockies, Snow Mountain Ranch Collection, Rowley Homestead folders.