In 1876, Congress created the office of Special Agent in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. This office was expanded in 1881 to become the Division of Forestry. In 1905 the United States Forest Service (USFS) came into existence as an agency of the Department of Agriculture. Gifford Pinchot was picked to lead the new agency.
One of the tasks of the USFS has been the detection and control of forest fires. John Grosvenor, in his book A History of the Architecture of the USDA Forest Service, writes:
“The greatest single motivator for fire protection within the Forest Service was its Chief, Gifford Pinchot. Part of Pinchot's plan was to convince the public that the Forest Service mission included fire detection and prevention. Pinchot and many of his followers believed that wildland fires should be prevented whenever possible or, if that failed, that fires be suppressed.”
In mapping the national forests during the early years of the USFS, specific mountaintops were considered for detection locations. From these mountain tops, smoke from fires could be spotted and their locations relied to fire crews. John Grosvenor writes:
“The earliest lookouts were high peaks with an unobstructed view, with tents as shelters and short mapboard stands for pinpointing the smoke on maps. After 1905. tall trees, crude observation-only towers, platforms, and small log cabins began to be used.”
The forest fires of 1910 in Montana, Idaho, and Washington changed how the Forest Service viewed forest fires. One of the innovations was the development of a series of fire lookouts, often located on mountain tops, which could spot and located fires early. Fire lookout towers have an effective range of about a 20-mile radius. Today, many of the lookouts are not needed for fire surveillance and serve as vista points for visitors.
Many different designs for fire lookouts have been used. Shown below are some of these designs from a display in the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula in Missoula, Montana.
Shown below are some museum displays of fire lookouts.
Stevensville Historical Museum, Stevensville, Montana
Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, Missoula, Montana
Museum of North Idaho, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
Lookouts began to be constructed in the national forests by 1905 and by 1915 the design for the lookouts had become standardized.
Smokejumper Visitor Center, Missoula, Montana
In order to fight a forest fire, it must be spotted and located. Fire lookouts are located on mountain tops throughout the region where people can scan the landscape looking for smoke and notifying the firefights. Shown below are photographs from the displays in the full-size lookout at the Smokejumpers Center.
Tillamook County Pioneer Museum, Tillamook, Oregon
Fort Missoula, Missoula, Montana
Museums 201
This series presents photo tours of similar exhibits from several museums. More from this series:
Museums 201: Typewriters (photo diary)
Museums 201: Telephones (photo diary)
Museums 201: Medicines (photo diary)
Museums 201: The caboose (photo diary)
Museums 201: Women's sidesaddles (photo diary)
Museums 201: Bathrooms (photo diary)
Museums 201: Railway offices (photo diary)
Museums 201: Cash Registers (photo diary)