Silent Sentinels
by Fred Tetreault
A firewatch tower at Big River State
Few images evoke thoughts of forestry, forests and
forest fire fighting more readily than that of a fire lookout tower. At one time, such towers dotted the Illinois
landscape, not just on public lands, but on private forestlands throughout the state as well.
"Dotting the landscape" does not mean there were
a great number of the structures. There probably weren't
more than three dozen statewide. But the nature of their
mission required that they be widely scattered across
the state.
Only four of them still stand.
One is owned by the Vermilion County Conservation District and can be seen in Forest Glen Forest Preserve near Georgetown. It was erected in 1970 and is
73 feet high. The U.S. Forest Service's Trigg Tower,
near Simpson in Pope County, is partially dismantled,
but efforts to rehabilitate it as an interpretive attraction
are being discussed.
The Department of Conservation owns the other two
— one at Trail of Tears State Forest near Jonesboro and
the other at Big River State Forest in Henderson County.
Both are in relatively good condition, and last March
both were added to the National Historic Lookout Register sponsored by the American Resources Group of
Vienna, Virginia.
Firewatch towers were in existence as early as the
1870s, but their purpose was to protect other bumables,
such as a town — Helena, Montana, 1870 — or wooden
railroad equipment sheds — northern California, 1879.
The first firewatch lookout tower built to help protect a
forest was erected on a private woodland in Idaho in
48 • Illinois Parks & Recreation * November/December 1994
1902. In 1915, the U.S. Forest Service constructed its
first lookout in Oregon, a 12-foot by 12-foot log cabin
perched atop Mount Hood at an altitude of more than
11,200 feet.
Fire towers proliferated from that point to the end
of the 1920s, but the message of their value apparently
didn't reach Illinois until the early 1930s.
The reason is easy to understand: The value of forests was not as widely understood or appreciated here
as in some other parts of the country — say, the south
and east, where naval stores and timber for ships had
been driving forces in the settlement of the areas, and in
the northwest, which produced much of the nation's lumber. Fire towers in some of those regions numbered into
the thousands.
A quote from Gifford Pinchot, probably the nation's
first professional forester and former chief (1898-1910)
of what was to become the U.S. Forest Service, sheds
light on the view many Illinoisans and other Americans
still held about forest protection well into the first quarter of the 20th century:
"In the early days of forest fires, they were considered simply and solely as acts of God, against which
any opposition was hopeless and any attempt to control
them not merely hopeless but childish. It was assumed
that they came in the natural order of things, as inevitably as the seasons or the rising and setting of the sun."
Pinchot spent much of his life showing such fires were
entirely within man's control.
By the early 1930s, the federal Civilian Conservation Corps, "Roosevelt's Forest Army," had been established and CCC camps were in operation throughout the
state. It was the CCC which led the way in forest development and protection. The historic army built all 16 of
the U.S. Forest Service's towers in southern Illinois and
at least one — but probably more — of the 11 owned by
the Conservation Department.
From these high vantage points, observers easily
could spot fires anywhere within a 360-degree field of
view that extended six to 12 miles. According to Mary
McCorvey of the Forest Service, the observation stations were placed so their coverage areas intersected.
The system worked well for 50 years.
Illinois forester Dave Gillespie, a section manager
in the Forest Resources Division of the Department of
Conservation, spent the summer of 1961 — literally — in such a tower in Montana's Kootenai National Forest.
He rarely left the 14-foot by 14-foot cupola, perched 40
feet up on wooden legs high on a mountaintop. But he
remembers the experience fondly.
"If you didn't mind being alone, it was great. Along
with beautiful scenery, it offered an opportunity for reading, reflection, meditation, peace and quiet and wildlife
watching," he said. Not everyone could handle the solitude, however. "At least one of the fire tower people in
our area cracked under the strain and had to be relieved
of duty," Gillespie reported.
There also were some hazards to the job and some
negatives. Storms and the potential for running afoul of
bears, cougars or other dangerous critters comprised
most of the former, while living conditions made up the
bulk of the latter.
Since fire towers generally are tall structures — from
40 to 100 feet high — and were erected atop the highest
landsites, such as bluffs and hills, they present a good
target for lightning strikes. The towers were grounded
by thick copper wires, but no one was ever quite sure
what the results of a direct hit might be.
"Generally, we put glass or ceramic powerline insulators on the feet of our chairs to make sure we were
insulated, and we took great pains to avoid getting between two metal objects when there was a thunderstorm
in the vicinity," Gillespie explained. At times he observed "balls of fire" bouncing around the cabin between
metal points, he said. "I don't know if they would cause
injury if they had struck me, but I wasn't eager to find
out."
He had seen bears in the area several times, but on
one occasion a bear got into the woodshed at the base of
his tower. In its zeal to catch the small animals which
often inhabited such sheds, the bear scattered the wood
and severely damaged the structure as Gillespie watched.
It was several hours before the firewatcher climbed down
to repair the damage and re-stack his wood supply.
Another time, a cougar snarled at Gillespie, then
watched and waited behind a nearby tree. After an extended period, the frustrated cat emitted a few ear-splitting screams and ambled off.
"It wasn't likely either of those animals would come
up after me, and even if they did, the cabin was sturdy
and could be entered only through a heavily built trap
door which I could secure with a large bolt," Gillespie
explained. But, he said, the incidents nevertheless were
spooky.
Living conditions included a woodbuming stove to
provide warmth, to heat bath and laundry water and for
cooking; no electricity; once-a-week delivery of food,
water and other supplies; baths in a metal laundry tub
— as often as the firewatcher's water supply held out;
and no refrigeration or ice to keep food edible. "We
could order great big steaks, as many as we wanted, but
they had to be eaten within a couple of days or they'd
Illinois Parks & Recreation * November/December 1994 * 49
This is perhaps the only surviving
go bad," Gillespie said.
Primarily, the lookout's fare was canned food, perhaps
bacon, canned milk, sausage and potatoes. The Forest Service
provided its station attendants with a "Lookout's Cookbook"
to help them with menu planning. One of Gillespie's favorites was "Lookout's fudge." "I made a lot of that fudge while
I was there."
Another inconvenience was the location of the toilet — an outhouse near the tower's base.
The top half of the roofed cupola was open or could be
enclosed by a continuous window looking out in every direction. A narrow catwalk encircled the outside of the little cabin.
Furnishings included a bed, chair, table, large laundry tub, wood
burning cook stove, a few shelves on the lower half of the
cupola walls, a battery-powered two-way radio, binoculars and
the circular, revolving "firefinder" sight, the instrument used
to pinpoint the location of a fire.
The firefinder, pivoted in the center of the cupola, consisted of a sighting device on a rotary table set above and parallel to a map of the area with the tower as its center. The
device looked somewhat like a sun dial.
A few firewatchers lived in cabins on the ground, but for
most, the tower was their home. Their days were filled by
watching for fires, painting the cabin, sometimes a little reading while also keeping both eyes peeled for smoke on the horizon, cooking and sleeping.
Gillespie came down sometimes at night to walk, if he
was sure there were no unfriendly wildlife to deal with. He
also spent time chopping wood for himself and whoever was
to follow him at the station. And, of course, he had to come
downstairs to use the outhouse.
Once during the summer, he was picked up and taken back
to civilization — the nearest ranger station, which was 25 miles
away — where he could shower, do his laundry properly and
get a haircut. Otherwise, he was on duty from sunup to sundown, seven days per week. His only contact with the outside
world were radio calls to and from the ranger station and the
person who brought food and water once per week.
Fire lookouts were sent to school for two weeks of job
training before being assigned to a tower. Still, finding a fire
and directing firefighters to it were not all that easy, according
to Gillespie. "We watched lightning strikes primarily and made
note of where they occurred. A lightning bolt might start a fire
that would smoulder for as long as 10 days before breaking
out," he said.
Once smoke was sighted, the firefinder was used to pinpoint the direction in relation to the tower. Then the lookout
had to figure out how far away the smoke was from the tower
by comparing its distance with the known distances of certain
other topographical features along the line of sight indicated
by the firefinder.
"Sometimes we'd get lucky and direct the crews to within
sight of the fire. Other times, they'd be relatively close, but
couldn't find it because it was behind a hill or obscured by
surrounding trees. On still other occasions, they'd miss the
fire by a wide margin. Then, we'd have to work together by
radio to work them close enough to find it," Gillespie explained.
"There also were times when the fire was in an almost
50 * Illinois Parks & Recreation * November/December 1994
"All of these problems were eliminated when we began
using aircraft to spot fires and direct crews," Gillespie pointed
out.
Lookouts took great pride in their ability to spot fires and
direct fire fighting crews to them quickly and efficiently. A
great deal of competition existed between lookouts and contests often developed to be the first lookout to spot a fire.
Aerial fire detection began to make fire towers in Illinois
obsolete in the 1960s. Between 1967 and the mid-1970s, the
Forest Service and Conservation Department ceased using the
structures and sold or scrapped all but the few that still exist.
The two agencies shared aerial survey information so that little
duplication of effort resulted.
Twenty-six of the 27 Illinois towers were of steel construction — though two of the Forest Service units had
wooden stairs — and all were between 60 and 100 feet high. All but
one were built between 1934 and 1940.
Only minor differences are seen in their design. At the top
were either open platforms or enclosed cabins. These ranged
from seven feet square to 14 feet square. Some units had stairwells, others utilized ladders.
The lone non-steel tower was at Sand Ridge State Forest
in Mason County. Built of locally cut timbers by state forest
employees in 1940, it stood 100 feet tall. It was destroyed by
lightning in the 1970s.
The state towers stood near Benton, Pinckneyville,
Shawneetown, Lively Grove (Washington County), Royalton
(Franklin County), Aden (Hamilton County), Cypress (Johnson
County), at Pere Marquette State Park and at Trail of Tears,
Sand Ridge and Big River state forests.
Forest Service lookout stations included:
The Big River and Trail of Tears stations were honored
for "meeting those standards of historic and cultural significance as established by the National Historic
Lookout Register." The Trail of Tears structure, documented as having been
erected by the CCC, is 80 feet high and sports a 7-foot by 7-foot enclosed cabin. It was built between 1936 and 1938. The
Big River tower is 60 feet tall and also has a 7-foot by 7-foot
cabin at the top.
Fred Tetreault is a staff writer for the Department of
Conservation's magazine, OutdoorIllinois. This article originally appeared in the October 1994 issue of the publication. *
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Sam S. Manivong, Illinois Periodicals Online Coordinator |