REGIONS: ORIGIN SITE ~ Northeast WA, RE-LO SITE ~ Northeast WA
The movement of the 4th lookout on Stranger Mountain near Chewelah to the Northeast Washington Fairgrounds in Colville is a typical Type 1 re-location.
The entry for the Stranger Mountain Lookout in the 2015 revision to the Lookout Inventory from Ray Kresek’s FIRE LOOKOUTS OF THE NORTHWEST reads in part: “1930: platform tower, cabin. 1936: 50’ pole L-6 twr. 1959: 40’wdn DNR twr (cab sold to Dave Kresek, moved to Crystal Ridge near Fernwood, ID). 1983: 42’ wdn DNR twr (moved to Colville Fairgrounds).”
It is interesting that three out of the four lookouts that have been atop this 5819’ peak were moved after they were no longer being used as fire lookouts The fourth, and last, lookout on Stranger Mountain was last staffed in 1994. A communication tower had already replaced the third lookout tower by that time. When it was planned to also replace the abandoned fourth lookout with other communication towers, the DNR decided to either destroy the lookout on place or to sell it to outside interests who would then move it. Lori Matlock, the manager of the NE Washington Fairgrounds in Colville, began to negotiate with the DNR to save the lookout and move it to the Fairgrounds for exhibit there. The following article which appeared in the Summer 2008 edition of FFLA’s LOOKOUT NETWORK describes the results of Lori’s negotiations.
Stranger Lookout Removed, but Saved!
Stranger (“Stensgar” on most maps), a DNR live-in lookout tower near Chewelah, WA was successfully moved intact 30 miles from atop the mountain to the Colville fairgrounds July 10 without as much as a broken window, after two years of negotiations with the DNR. It had to be removed from the mountain. In a dream-come-true fashion, Stevens County Fair manager Lori Matlock was able to fit the use of nearly a dozen pieces of donated heavy machinery into finely tuned clockwork to make it all happen. A boom crane, on the mountaintop to install a new Homeland Security facility, was able to pluck the entire cab and catwalk off its 40′ wooden tower. A large DNR flatbed truck received it for the first leg of the trip. A couple miles down the steep, narrow road off the summit, a larger truck and lowboy trailer, loaned by a local contractor, hauled the twenty foot wide load via all of the backroads into downtown Colville. Waiting at the fairgrounds were two giant forklifts from a local sawmill that gently set it on the ground. The tower’s original legs were cut off at 13′ and re-set on concrete piers; a few days later there just happened to be another construction crane available at 4pm. It took but a few minutes, and the Stranger Lookout tower was up in the air again. Total cost: $25. The rest was all donated. Lori promises that it will be a prime fixture for future fairgoers to always remember the era of the Fire Lookouts.
The Cab from Stranger Mountain LO #4 is moved to the NE WA Fairgrounds in Colville
Our visit to the NE WA Fairgrounds ~ the RE-LO SITE for the Stranger Mountain #4 LO
Peggy and I visited the Northeast Washington Fairgrounds in Colville on August 5, 2019
Lori Matlock was hard at work on the fairgrounds when we visited the re-located lookout there. Lori, the Director of the NE Washington Fairgrounds, was instrumental in saving the Stranger Mtn LO #4 and having it moved to the fairgrounds. She told us her colorful version of the move including more details than were in the FFLA article included at the start of this post. One interesting part of the story was that the driver of the truck towing the lowboy trailer received a cell phone call as he neared Colville telling him that a fire had broken out on his property. When he pulled onto the fairgrounds the waiting fork lifts raised the cab and catwalk just high enough for him to drive out from under it and he sped home to help fight the fire.
Peggy climbed the steps to the catwalk, but found the door to be locked. We could see some of the lookout furnishings through the windows
Our Visit to the Stranger Mountain LO Site, the ORIGIN SITE
Peggy and I drove to the abandoned lookout site atop Stranger Mountain on August 31, 2021. There are now a number of large communication towers atop Stranger Mountain and another one was being built. There are no Fire Lookouts on Stranger Mountain now.
These chunks of concrete were the only lookout “artifacts” that we saw atop Stranger Mountain in 2021.
Views from the Stranger Mountain Lookout Site.
NOTE: The mountain is called Stensgar on maps, but the lookout was called the Stranger Mountain Lookout. The following article appeared in the Summer 2008 edition of FFLA’s LOOKOUT NETWORK.
Stranger or Stensgar?
Why is it that Stranger Lookout is shown on the maps as Stensgar Mountain, never Stranger? John Kresek thinks he has found the answer to the question. John found that the history of Addy (a small town north of Chewelah) refers to a man named Thomas Stensgar and says that Stensgar is pronounced “Stranger”. If that is true, that should explain where “Stranger” comes from. Stensgar, a native of Scotland and former employee of the Hudson Bay Company, was the second settler in the area, coming to old Fort Colville on the Columbia in the 1840’s and soon afterwards settling at a point two miles north of the present town of Addy.
Two of the other Stranger Mtn LOs were moved to new locations. Click Stranger #2 or Stanger #3 to find out where they went.