Passport in Time PIT Project

Passport in Time (PIT) is a volunteer archaeology and historic preservation program of the U.S. Forest Service.  PIT volunteers work with professional Forest Service archaeologists and historians on national forests throughout the United States on such diverse activities as archaeological survey and excavation, rock art restoration, survey, archival research, historic structure restoration, oral history gathering, and analysis and curation of artifacts. 

The PIT project at Madera Canyon is preservation of the remains of White House, undoubtedly the canyon's most famous historical feature.  White House is an old white-washed adobe structure believed to have been built by a sheep herder or farmer named Walden, in the late 1870s or early 1880s.  Tucson merchant Theodore Wellish used it as a family vacation home in the 1880s.  He was the owner of The White House Mercantile Company and may have been the one who whitewashed the two-room structure.  The area became known as White House Canyon. 

Volunteers with the Friends of Madera Canyon work to preserve what remains of this old adobe structure annually with Forest Service archaeologists who provide technical help, by mixing adobe to patch areas in the wall and to cover the structure with whitewash.

Our work during the summer of 2009 was summarized by Forest Service archaeologist Chris Schrager, as follows:

We were able to get a tremendous amount of work done, including training volunteers in adobe stabilization, testing some of the circular depressions in the vicinity of the ruin, and completing a number of test excavations in the structure's interior fill.  Our success will assist us in a greater understanding of the historic use of this site, and a possible re-evaluation of its eligibility for listing on the National register of Historic Places.