History of the Log Cabin

  Intrinsically a log cabin may have but little value.  Looking
  back into that bottomless vale of memory, this rough hewn room
  of logs conveys a value so great that it is beyond the ken of
  mortal man to figure.
   
  Thus it is with the Memorial Cabin of the 314th Infantry,
  located on a beautiful knoll overlooking the Schuylkill River at
  Valley Forge, that shrine of American Independence. Log for
  log, and stone for stone, it is the identical cabin that brings to
  mind the long and arduous days of Camp Meade, when men were
  men preparing for a conflict beyond the seas.
   
  Back in those hectic days of the fall of 1917 when Camp
  Meade presented a desolate and disordered sight with miles of
  sandy wilderness dotted here and there by what little nature
  could push up above the poor soil, the early arrivals built
  a log cabin.
   
  Material at that time was scarce.  The abundance of stores
  that later presented itself was in the making.  Necessity forced
  those early pilgrims to use their initiative out of which rose the  
  log cabin, from trees felled on the reservation, from hardware
  collected from the hinterland of the camp, and from other
  materials left by nature.  Spikes were hammered out of horseshoes
  and the massive hinges on the doors were shaped from wagon tires.
   
  Situated just beyond regimental headquarters the log cabin
  became a sort of shrine to the thousands who poured through the
  camp.  It was something unique in the realm of soldierdom and it
  stood as an insignia of the regiment.
   
  A memorial to those who lost their all was suggested.  What
  better monument could be reared than the cabin made by some
  of the very men who perished on the bloody fields of the Argonne?
  Log by log and stone by stone the Cabin was taken down and
  transported from Camp Meade to Valley Forge, where it now
  stands as an everlasting memorial to the men of the 314th.