The living quarters belonging to an Idaho icon who spent more than 60 years in the side of a government-owned mountain have been blocked off by the Bureau of Land Management.
The Bureau says it hired a contractor to use rock fill the entrances to 28 structures, nine caves, six outhouses and three hand-dug wells. Richard Zimmerman built each one. The Salmon man died two years ago at the age of 94.
Liz Townley is with the Salmon office of the BLM. She says soon after the man known as “Dugout Dick” died, her office went to work on figuring out what to do with the site. The government asked the public for input, but didn't get much.
"We expected more public input than we got," she says. "And it definitely wasn’t for a lack of trying. We did a lot of reach to get public comment on what the public wanted to see with that site. And we held a public meeting in Salmon where we had two people show up."
Townley says the structures and caves weren’t safe. There were health and sanitation concerns, as well.
The B-L-M opted to keep Zimmerman’s original cabin open and built a nearby parking lot for visitors. The contents of his other dwellings were documented, and those notes were sent to the state historical society. Interpretive panels that will tell visitors about Dugout Dick are expected to be finished by October.