List of evaluated roadside properties
Orr Roadside Parking Area
SHPO number: SL-ORC-005
The Orr Roadside Parking Area is located along Trunk Highway 53 on the eastern shore of Pelican Lake in St. Louis County, Minnesota. The 10-acre property, a few blocks north of the City of Orr’s small central business district, includes land on both sides of the highway and features a scenic overlook, picnic areas, beach, and a foot trail. Developed between 1935 and 1938, the Orr Roadside Parking Area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
Significant historic elements and status
Evaluated under the Multiple Property Documentation Form entitled “Federal Relief Construction in Minnesota, 1933-1941,” the Orr Roadside Parking Area is an excellent example of the wayside rests built during the formative years of the Roadside Development Division of the Minnesota Department of Highways. It also represents an important partnership between the Division and the federal relief agencies to provide essential work and job training during the Great Depression. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Company 725 provided the labor to build the roadside parking area. The company was stationed in the Kabetogama State Forest and supervised by the Minnesota Department of Conservation’s Division of Forestry. When it was completed, the Orr Roadside Parking Area was one of the most well-developed wayside rests in Minnesota.
In addition to its historical associations, the Orr Roadside Parking Area is significant for its design in the National Park Service Rustic Style. Harold E. Olson, head of the Roadside Development Division, served as engineer for the project and Arthur R. Nichols served as the consulting landscape architect for the Division. Nichols’s design skillfully adapts to the rocky, hilly shoreline of Pelican Lake. Vegetation on the forested site was carefully considered to frame scenic views, screen the park from the highway, and to repair scars left from highway construction. The principal structure is an overlook wall built of pink, red, and gray granite on a stone footing. It has a straight section measuring approximately 200 feet long that features rustic log railings and two curved end sections that are each about 55 feet long. A wooden fishing pier is constructed at the lake shore directly below the overlook. Originally, a picnic and campground area were located directly across Trunk Highway 53 from the overlook wall; these features were removed in the 1970s. Although the original bathhouses have been removed (replaced by a log picnic shelter), the bathing beach area on the southern edge of the site has its own parking lot, picnic area and is connected via a gravel path, including a small wooden bridge over an existing creek.
Features that contribute to and help convey the significance of the Orr Roadside Parking Area include: the property’s location along the eastern shore of Pelican Lake; the overall spatial organization, circulation, and vegetation; the stone overlook wall, fishing pier, picnic fireplaces, stone lakeshore; and the bathing beach area and foot trail.