At one time a Flume ran from the Sugar Pine Lumber company near Fish Camp down along the Fresno River down to the town of Madera. A very large warehouse in Madera had been built from some of this lumber. The owners eventually wanted this warehouse taken down. When Hazel Kennedy and her son-in-law Murray Ward heard of this, they decided to try to salvage the lumber.

In 1950, Hazel’s then-husband, Bill Smith, and Murray went to Madera, disassembled the warehouse, and hauled the lumber to Coarsegold. Murray and his mother-in-law then built identical barns on their respective ranches – the ranch here at Willow Glen and the Ward’s ranch that is behind present-day Black Hawk Lodge, just south of the YLP entrance. You will find pictures of the barn as it looked when the Coarsegold Historical Society bought the property in 1991. The Coarsegold Historic Society volunteers did a remarkable job of rebuilding. On October 1, 2000, the bam was dedicated to Hazel Kennedy. The barn retains the “Willow Glen Museum” historic name.