The Civilian Conservation Corps In Arizona'S Rim Country: Working In The Woods

Appendix 2

130 fire lookouts in the rim country Perhaps as important as firefighting in the CCC was the placement and building of fire lookout towers. In its early days, the Forest Service, short of both manpower and money, used very primitive methods of finding fires. The most common way to scout fires was by using “lag” trees. Foresters picked out a tall, strong pine and spiked it with metal bolts, then used the tree as a type of ladder. Occasionally a small platform was built at the top. The metal steps did not kill the tree, but the climb was dangerous and seldom gave an observer a good above-the-treetops view. After finding the smoke, the ranger was expected to climb down, pick up tools, and head for the fire.1 Thenextlogicalstepwastowerswithviewingplatforms.Many were built before the CCC arrived, but the added manpower made it possible to accelerate new construction and to repair and enlarge existing towers (see table 1). Such construction often included a storage building and small living quarters at the base of the tower. During the CCC days, the Forest Service used a standardized plan for lookout construction. The Aermotor Company of Chicago manufactured prefabricated parts for steel towers and had been sending them out to the forests since the 1920s. With the new manpower from the CCC and the relative ease of building using prefab units, lookout tower construction jumped ahead in all the country’s forest regions.2 Because the Mogollon Rim escarpment stretches across half the state, the views are perfect for fire observation. From the edge one can look down on the central basins and also turn to see across the level plateau to the north. The canyons that cut the Rim on top and flow to the north get progressively steeper and more difficult to cross, even by road. Yet the canyon heads do not extend to the edge of the Rim. The area closest to the edge is flat. It would not have been difficult for CCC crews to get building materials and manpower to the lookout sites on the Rim. Thus, Forest Service officials planned for a string of towers along Appendix 2 appendix 2 j 131 the Mogollon Rim and on selected mountaintop sites farther east in the Apache National Forest. Even though it was geologically easier to build on the edge of the Rim, the earliest towers were built on the high mountain sites in eastern Arizona. Indeed, within two months of opening one of the first Arizona camps, f-04-a near Alpine, a CCC crew of twenty was starting work on the Escudilla tower atop the third highest mountain in the state. That same camp also had a crew of fifteen men working on a tower near KP Cienega on the Coronado Trail south of Hannagan Meadow. On the Tonto National Forest, Diamond Point juts out below the rim, providing an ideal view of the Payson-to-Young territory—some of the most rugged in central Arizona. The CCC built a thirty-foot-tall standard tower here in the fall of 1936. While modifications have since been made to the tower, the wood-frame cabin at the base built in 1941 is little changed. The tower itself can easily be seen by motorists looking north of State Route 260 a short distance from Payson. Besides new towers, the CCC also rebuilt or made modifications to existing fire towers. When Promontory tower on the Sitgreaves forest was built in 1924, it was the tallest lookout in the country—110 feet. In 1938 the CCC boys replaced the original ladder with steel stairs crisscrossing inside the tower frame, making the climb less nerve-racking. 3 Table 1. Fire Lookout Towers Built by the CCC in the Mogollon Rim/White Mountains Region Lookout Date National Forest Bear Mountain 1933 Apache-Sitgreaves Big Lake 1933 Apache-Sitgreaves Blue 1933 Apache-Sitgreaves Escudilla 1933 Apache-Sitgreaves P. S. Knoll 1933 Apache-Sitgreaves Springer Mountain 1933 Apache-Sitgreaves Dutch Joe 1940 Apache-Sitgreaves Baker Butte 1937 Coconino Diamond Point 1936 Tonto From USDA Forest Service, Cultural Resource Management, Lookouts in the Southwestern Region. Report 8. September 1989. 132 j appendix 2 The original tower at Baker Butte on the Coconino National Forest was built in 1922. The butte itself is the highest point on the Mogollon Rim, and it offers spectacular views south toward Payson and the Mazatzal wilderness beyond...