I staffed the Hoodoo Lookout in the Blue Mountains of Northeast Oregon during the summers of 1957 and 1958. I also staffed the nearby Lookout Mountain Lookout for the last two weeks of the fire season in 1958. Both of these lookouts were in the Walla Walla District of the Umatilla National Forest and both of them are still standing. Hoodoo (officially Hoodoo Ridge) was last used in the 1960s. Lookout Mountain is still being used.
I was in college and took the summer job to help raise money to help pay for college tuition and expenses. My job title was Lookout Fireman with a GS-2 pay of around $275 a month. My salary was a little more than the average temporary lookout pay as the Hoodoo position required me to work a five day week with two days on standby. Since I only worked during fire season, this really meant that I worked a seven day week. The amount of my salary doesn’t sound like much, since several websites quote an average monthly salary of nearly $4000 for the fire lookout job today. Of course, the dollar went a lot farther 65 years ago. For example, the tuition of the colleges that I attended then ranged from $400 to $1200 a year. The 2022 tuition for each school is about $58,000.
Since I was a Lookout Fireman, I was sent to Fire Training School near Burns, Oregon at the beginning of the first summer. There I learned how to build a fire-line around a small spot fire and how to use “clean dirt” to extinguish the fire in burning embers. Since I was also manning a lookout full time, I was last on the list to be sent to a fire. Twice when the district’s fire crew, trail crews and hires off the street were all on other fires, I was sent by myself to be the first responder on a lightning struck tree. Armed with a Pulaski and 3’ saw, I established my fire line, cut down the tree and rubbed dirt over all the smoldering branches. In each case, I was relieved by a pair from the district fire crew on the second day.
I had not been back to either lookout since 1958. I was eager to visit both to refresh my memory, to see the changes and to show some of my early history to Peggy. We visited Hoodoo in September, 2021 and Lookout Mountain in October, 2022.
OUR VISIT TO HOODOO LOOKOUT ~ 9/18/2021
Hoodoo is a drive-up lookout which is reached by way of a gated short side-road off the gravel NF-62, one of the Umatilla National Forest’s major roads through the Blue Mountains. According to the entry in Ray Kresek’s FIRE LOOKOUTS OF THE NORTHWEST, the existing tower is a 107’ Aermotor steel tower with a 7’ x 7’ steel cab. It was built about 1933. The ruins of an earlier crow’s nest are still in a tree nearby.
Part of the ladder and the platform of the early crow’s nest were still there in a big pine tree when I was there in 1957 and 1958. When we visited in 2021, we quit looking for the ruins when it started raining. Other recent photos show that some of the crow’s nest ruins still exist.
OUR VISIT TO LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN LOOKOUT ~ 10/19/2022
There have been many fire lookouts located on Lookout Mountains. This Lookout Mountain is in Northeast Oregon’s Blue Mountains, 20 miles NNE of Elgin, Oregon. According to the entries in Ray Kresek’s FIRE LOOKOUTS OF THE NORTHWEST and in the FFLA’s website, the first lookout on this Lookout Mountain was a 60’ wooden observation tower. This was replaced in 1948 by an 87’ high timber L-4 tower which was staffed until 2001. The L-4 cab was then lowered to the ground, renovated at the site and then remounted by crane in 2004. It has been again staffed since 2005.
My brother, Glen, manned Lookout Mountain in the summer of 1958. 1958 was also my second summer manning the nearby Hoodoo Lookout. When Glen headed back to Walla Walla and Whitman College near the end of the 1958 fire season, I was shifted over from Hoodoo to Lookout Mountain for the last two weeks of the fire season.
I had not been back to Lookout Mountain since 1958. I was eager to re-visit it to refresh my memory and to show some of my early history to Peggy. The FFLA was holding its Western Convention in nearby Enterprise, Oregon on September 16-18, 2022 and attendees would visit both Lookout Mountain and Hoodoo. When we found that we would not be able to go to the convention, I scheduled our own visit to Lookout Mountain in October, 2022.
The Lookout Mountain Lookout, like Hoodoo, is a drive-up lookout which is reached by way of a gated short side-road off the gravel NF-62 which is one of the Umatilla National Forest’s major roads through the Blue Mountains.
As we neared the lookout, we could see that the cab’s shutters had been lowered to cover and protect the windows. Evidently the lookouts 2022 staffing had come to an end.
A group of FFLA convention attendees had visited the lookout in September, 2022. The lookout was still being staffed at that time. The shutters were up and the windows could be seen. (From photo by Gary Weber on Facebook’s Fire Lookout Enthusiasts group.)
The catwalk and cab could not be visited as the opening to the catwalk and cab were closed. Photos were taken from partway up the tower stairs. I had forgotten how flexible and shaky these old high wooden towers were.
