Fire Lookouts: Endings and Oddities - Paperback

by La Vaughn Vanderburg Kemnow (Author)

Some lookouts were able to be constructed because of fundraising efforts or by private donation. Some were placed on existing structures: Hotels, banks, barns, water towers, etc. Some were of very unusual design. When no longer needed, some were destroyed, abandoned, sold to the highest bidder; or sometimes reconstructed at a different site. These volumes contain many historic photographs; some of the older photographs and picture postcards are of poor quality, but were included for their historical value. This book is not in narrative form, but is a collection of news articles and official forestry reports in their original form, products of many years of research by of original documents by Ron Kemnow for his website ronkemnow.weebly.com.

Author Biography

The author grew up on a dairy farm in the Pacific Northwest adjacent to the Siuslaw National Forest, where her grandparents and great grandparents had been among the earliest settlers. Family outings often consisted of a drive over narrow dirt Forest Service roads winding through towering fir and spruce forests. The day would frequently include a primitive picnic, with venison steak threaded onto sharpened willow branches and broiled slowly over the glowing coals of a small cooking fire. sometimes their travels through the foothills of the Coast Range led them to a fire lookout tower. This interest was expanded in later ears when she and her husband began visiting fire lookouts and abandoned lookout sites. The fascination with the history of these sites led to an in-depth study and research of original documents pertaining to the subject, much of which is presented in these volumes.