This location has two markers
This steel lookout tower is 80 feet tall and has a 7 foot by 7 foot steel cab on top. It was erected in 1934.
As guardians of our nation's vast timber reserves, the U.S. Forest Service has always given fire detection and control a high priority. In the first years after the Forest Service was established in 1905, fire guards patrolled the forest on horseback. The earliest form of lookout structure was simply a platform mounted in a tree. The fire guard would climb the tree, spot the fire, and then report it. Eventually, permanent lookout stations and towers were established on prominent points These early towers were built with local materials, usually logs or lumber. The lookout used a device called an Osborne fire-finder to pinpoint a fire's location. Telephones enabled lookouts to quickly report fires, speeding response time. Today, radios are the most common form of communication. In the early 1930s, the Forest Service developed a region-wide plan for fire detection and control. The plan included suggestions for lookout tower design and locations to ensure complete visual coverage of the landscape
Largely as a result of this plan, and the influx of labor from the Civilian Conservation Corps, the 1930s became the most active period for lookout tower construction in the nation. Steel towers and cabs were built to standard Forest Service architectural plans. Jacob Lake Lookout Tower, completed in 1934, is typical of others built during that era.
Second marker
This site listed on the National Historic Lookout Register
A national register recognizing fire lookout sites, structures and towers with historic and cultural significance to forest fire detection in order to promote their protection.
Maintained in cooperation with federal, state, and private forestry agencies and landowners throughout the United States
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