Early lookout men were a special breed

The first three summers I worked for the Forest Service I was stationed on (an) unimproved point. I was fortunate, however, that there were two of us stationed at the same point. In such cases, one man was designated the lookout, and the other the smokechaser. I played the latter role.

The advantage of two being together was that we could throw our bedding together and make a much better bed. We built a good substantial bunk up off the ground and covered it deep in fir boughs for springs and mattress. We stretched our tent in a good sturdy manner so it would afford us, our bed, food, and personal belongings the maximum protection from the elements. Believe me, the elements can be rough at an elevation of 8,000 feet, what with wind, lightning, rain and even hail and snow.

Since the Forest Service did not furnish a stove we built a rock fireplace where we did the fry cooking and boiling, then an oven in the rocks for baking bread. This done, our quarters were complete, still quite primitive but we managed to get along and be quite comfortable most of the time. It has been said before and I am sure it is true, that it took a special breed of men to fill these jobs and live under such primitive conditions. They had to love the mountains and be possessed of the old pioneer spirit. Starting wages for a first-year lookout man were $70 per month, including board and room. And, at first, room was “all the outdoors.”

The first structures to be built on the early day lookouts were small, crude log cabins for man shelter. The observatory might be just a ladder up a tree to where a small platform with a railing

called a “crow’s nest” was built. On this crow’s nest the lookout man had his map board and alidade and could do his fire spotting.

The first somewhat modern lookout structure to be used in this region was a 14-foot-by-14-foot frame structure with windows on all four sides. This structure was placed directly on top of the lookout point and served both as living quarters and observatory.

At this point I should say something about the food which was furnished by the Forest Service. Because all food had to be packed in by mule train, which took from 4 to 6 days from the road end, and because there were no facilities for keeping fresh foods, they had to be of a nonperishable nature.

A typical grub list would run about as follows: Flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, coffee, beans, rice, dried apricots, prunes and raisins. Sometimes there were dehydrated potatoes. For meat there was ham and bacon, and sometimes a little canned corned beef. Other canned foods consisted of corn, tomatoes, milk and syrup.

Some years later when the Forest Service began to furnish canned fruit and apple butter, we thought this was really high living. It is only fair to say that we supplemented our diet with huckleberries and fish when we were able to get to where they were. Also when grouse season opened that helped, too.

The water supply was often a problem. Most lookout points were located a considerable distance above a source of water, so keeping an adequate supply on hand for drinking and for camp use was quite a chore.

In the beginning about the same system was used by all. The Forest Service furnished a 5-gallon water bag with shoulder straps attached. This was called a man-pack water bag. The lookout backpacked his water to his tower from the nearest spring, creek or lake. This might be a distance of two or three miles.

In these cases, water had to be conserved. No bathing was done; dishwashing was cut to a minimum. Such utensils as frying and baking pans were never washed – as soon as a slick glaze was burned on them they were simply wiped out with a cloth. Other dishes were scraped and wiped as clean as possible before they were put in the dishwater. In this way the water remained clean enough so that it could be used two or three times.

In the beginning, communication was just as primitive as other facilities on these remote points. The Forest Service first attempted to use the heliograph. For many obvious reasons there was little success with this instrument.

Next we tried to tie in telephone communication with a fine insulated wire, which we hung on tree limbs. This was called emergency wire telephone. It was a little more dependable than the heliograph. However, it was vulnerable to breakage by windstorms, falling trees and by wild animals, such as elk and deer tangling in it.

The first fairly dependable communication did not come until the advent of the standard Forest Service tree line. In this, No. 9 galvanized wire was used. It was hung on trees with a split tree insulator which, when a tree fell across the line, could render through and go to ground rather than break.