Bordner Cabin, Swatara State Park on Old State Road, 2.7 miles NE of the Appalachian Trail Bridge

2009 Virtual Tour of the Bordner Cabin in Swatara State Park on Old State Road, 2.7 miles NE of the Appalachian Trail Bridge. A self-guided tour includes interior signage and pictures of Armar Bordner as well as pictures of the rooms as they were furnished during his tenure at the Cabin.
In rustic lodge style architecture created by the National Parks Services and built between 1916 - 1942, the interlocking hand-hewn logs form both the exterior and interior walls of the building. The porch railing is a geometric lace of branches. The basement walls and fireplace were crafted from stone found on the site.
The property was originally owned by Union Canal Engineer Benjamin Aycrigg. Armar Bordner purchased the property, and built the Cabin by Aycrigg's Falls on Rattling Run. As part of Project 70, which sought to place a state park within 25 miles of every citizen, the State of PA initiated eminent domain proceedings on all properties within the boundary of Swatara State Park. Armar fought the eminent domain proceeding, and won a lease to live in the Cabin that he built until his death.
The Swatara Watershed Association, a 501c3 nonprofit, learned of plans to demolish the Cabin. After a site visit, SWA, the current occupants, successfully petitioned the State for a 10-year lease, which started in 2006. SWA believes the Bordner Cabin should be shared with the community, and has a vision of operating the facility as an open-air pavilion for artists to paint, photographers to snap pictures, picnics.
Born on November 1, 1904 to Harvey Bordner and Stella Darkes and deceased on November 19, 1994, Armar Bordner married Margaret M. Olver. He is buried at Union-Salem Evangelical Congregational cemetery (Latitude 40.452593, Longitude -76.4843). He was a wood shop and drafting teacher at Northern Lebanon High School, Fredericksburg PA. Prior to NLHS, Armar taught at Lebanon High. In addition to drafting blue prints for the Cabin, Armar Bordner taught his students real-life skills by allowing them to work alongside him during construction. He wrote his Master's Thesis on Vocational and Industrial Education (a proposed industrial arts program for the junior high school grades in Lebanon County, PA) at Pennsylvania State College, Bibliography: leaf 99-101.
This Cabin is the only example of 1930s rustic architecture known to exist in Lebanon County. Each log is maticulously hand hewn and notched together. With its intensive use of hand labor and its rejection of the regularity and symmetry of the industrial world, the product of an attitude far removed from our own, the Cabin became an accessory to nature by using native materials and blending into the environment.