Frank Lee House

Frank and his brother, Ed Lee, built the cabin around 1916.  It was supposedly the biggest house in town at the time. When it was built, it was considered ‘near the edge of town’, since many businesses were at the river’s edge. Only a couple years later, Ed married Belle Grindrod and they moved closer to the Susitna/Talkeetna River.  They stayed in business with Frank.  Frank continued living in his home and ran his freighting business from the location.  His freight horses lived in the barn behind the house.  In 1944, Lee retired and moved to the lower 48.

The Darch family, as the new owners, turned the home into a roadhouse.  The Darch Roadhouse existed for seven years until Verna and Carroll Close bought the property and renamed it the Talkeetna Roadhouse (the building has had too many additions to qualify as a historic structure on its own).