A cookhouse is a small building where cooking takes place. Often found at remote work camps, they complemented the bunkhouse and were usually found on

ranch A ranch (from /Mexican Spanish) is an area of landscape, land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of farm. These terms are most often ap ...

es that employed

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

s, or loggers in a

logging camp A logging camp (or lumber camp) is a transitory work site used in the logging industry. Before the second half of the 20th century, these camps were the primary place where lumberjacks would live and work to fell trees in a particular area. Many ...

. Prior to the 20th century, cookhouses were a feature of some private residences where the kitchen was a separate building so the heat and smoke from cooking was kept away from the main residential building.

Types of cookhouses

In North America, cookhouses were a standard feature of remote work sites, as the working men (e.g.

s, loggers,

miners A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face (mining), face; cutt ...

, etc.) needed large amounts of food for the strenuous work they performed. In logging camps, cooks were important to the morale of the workers. In some cases, workers would follow a cook to the camp where they were working each season. The cookhouse was one of the key buildings at any work site, along with the bunkhouse and tool shed. The use of a cookhouse was not limited to resource extraction industries. Travelling circuses also use a style of cookhouse to feed their workers and performers. In the 1930s, the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...

worked in many remote areas, like the

Malheur National Forest The Malheur National Forest is a United States National Forest, National Forest in the U.S. state of Oregon. It contains more than in the Blue Mountains (Pacific Northwest), Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon. The forest consists of Great Basi ...

in the Ochoco Mountains of eastern

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

. The

Allison Ranger Station The Allison Guard Station is a Forest Service compound consisting of eight rustic buildings located in the Malheur National Forest in the Ochoco Mountains of eastern Oregon. It was originally built as a district ranger station for the Snow Mo ...

was expanded with two ranger residences, a fire warehouse, a gas house, a garage, a generator shed, and a cookhouse. Large institutions, like Ireland's Sligo Gaol, also had a cookhouse to serve the needs of the institution. A wannigan was a kitchen built on a raft which followed the log drivers down the river, both serving meals and providing tents and blankets for the night if no better accommodations were available.

Residential usage

In the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is List of regions of the United States, census regions defined by the United States Cens ...

, antebellum plantations, like the Archibald Smith Plantation or the Sion Hill estate, had a cookhouse separate from the main house to keep the main house from overheating. An example is the Condit Family house in New Jersey which had an unattached cookhouse. In

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, a common feature in homes prior to the 20th century was to have a cookhouse separate from the residence. With time and newer technologies this has changed with the kitchen being brought into the house.

Military usage

A military version of the cookhouse is the

galley A galley is a type of ship optimised for propulsion by oars. Galleys were historically used for naval warfare, warfare, Maritime transport, trade, and piracy mostly in the seas surrounding Europe. It developed in the Mediterranean world during ...

, the compartment of a

ship A ship is a large watercraft, vessel that travels the world's oceans and other Waterway, navigable waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research and fishing. Ships are generally disti ...

train A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...

, or

aircraft An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...

where food is cooked and prepared for consumption in the

mess The mess (also called a mess deck aboard ships) is a designated area where military personnel socialize, eat and (in some cases) live. The term is also used to indicate the groups of military personnel who belong to separate messes, such as the o ...

. In the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...

province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, north of

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha ( , ), formerly named Port Elizabeth, and colloquially referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipal ...

, the town of Cookhouse may have gotten its name from a small stone house used for shelter and cooking by troops camping on the bank of the

Great Fish River The Great Fish River (called ''great'' to distinguish it from the Namibian Fish River) () is a river running through the South African province of the Eastern Cape. The coastal area between Port Elizabeth and the Fish River mouth is known as ...

Gallery

File:Cookhouse interior, unidentified logging camp, Pacific Northwest, ca 1900 (INDOCC 192).jpg, Cookhouse interior, unidentified

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

, circa 1900 File:Totara Estate, Mens Quarters & Cookhouse.jpg, Men's quarters and cookhouse at Totara Estate File:The Ordnance Chief Officer's Cookhouse, Henriville, Boulogne (24703850058).jpg, The Ordnance Chief Officer's Cookhouse, Henriville, Boulogne, circa 1917 File:NJ Cumberland County Captain Edward Compton House 0005.jpg, Reconstructed cookhouse at the Captain Edward Compton House File:Lumber jacks, 1917 - 15664637774.jpg, Canadian lumberjacks in 1917, photo by Reuben Sallows

References

External links

*{{wiktionary-inline, cookhouse Kitchen Building types