New Deal Accomplishment: 3,116 new fire lookout towers constructed by the CCC

Above: A fire tower built by the CCC in 1934, on Fire Tower Road, Welcome, Maryland. Photo by Brent McKee, 2012.


Above: A CCC fire lookout station in Oregon. Photo from: Civilian Conservation Corps, Official Annual 1938, Ninth Corps Area, Medford District; likely a publication of Direct Advertising Co., Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: The CCC-built Gardner Fire Tower, Mill Valley California. Photo by Susan Ives, Creative Commons.

Above: A sign for the Big Ridge Fire Tower, constructed by the CCC in Lost River State Park, West Virginia, 1935. Photo by Brent McKee, 2011.

Above: The Big Ridge Fire Tower gave a nice view above the trees. Photo by Brent McKee, 2011.

Above: A view of the stairway system of the Big Ridge Fire Tower. Photo by Brent McKee, 2011.

Above: This structure is next to the Big Ridge Fire Tower in Lost River State Park and, if I recall correctly, served as a sort of bunkhouse and kitchen for CCC enrollees stationed at the tower. Photo by Brent McKee, 2011.

Above: West Virginia's most famous CCC-built lookout structure is the Thorny Mountain Fire Tower, built in Seneca State Forest in 1935. It can be rented out and has been featured in National Geographic, AAA, Wonderful West Virginia, and many other media sources and websites. Photo courtesy of West Virginia Department of Tourism.

Above: The WPA also built many fire towers, such as the ones noted in this newspaper excerpt from the Springfield Reporter (Springfield, Vermont), January 12, 1939, p. B4. At least one of these towers, the Elmore Fire Lookout, is a popular hiking destination today. The WPA noted its difficult construction: "The erection of one of the new towers, on Elmore Mountain in Vermont, was complicated by its location. Steel framework and concrete mixing materials had to be hoisted over an overhanging ledge in getting them to the site at the top of the mountain" (Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration, Report on Progress of the WPA Program, June 30, 1939, p. 43). Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Crossroads Fire Tower, Arkansas, built by the CCC in 1935 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. Photo by Tony Kelley, 2012, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, and used here under the CCA-SA 3.0 unported license.

New Deal Fire Lookout Towers

The final report of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) credits the enrollees with constructing 3,116 new fire towers (p. 104). These towers--along with truck trails, telephone lines, strategic use of radios, and the sheer number of CCC camps all across the country--greatly reduced fire response times, allowing the Triple Cs to stop many wildfires before they got out of hand. The report also notes that there were 1,187 "Lookout houses" constructed. "Lookout houses" might refer to structures like the small building next to the Big Ridge Fire Tower at Lost River State Park (pictured above), or perhaps structures like the Lamb Butte lookout (also pictured above), which were on top of mountains, not towers, or perhaps both types of structures.

As highlighted above in the newspaper story (just one of many such stories), the WPA built fire towers too, but probably not on the scale of the CCC's construction.

Also of interest: In the final report of the National Youth Administration (NYA), it is noted that there were 1,021 projects to build, enlarge, reconstruct, or improve "Fire observation structures" (p. 142). Unfortunately, there are few details about these structures. They seem to be lost somewhere in history.

Fire lookout towers were just one part of the New Deal's amazing array of conservation efforts. Other examples included planting trees, reducing wildfire fuel, creating wildlife refuges, building fish hatcheries, planting oysters, soil erosion control, and publishing books about the wonders and importance of the natural world.