Black Butte lookout tower collapses

Glen Corbett surveys the remains of the historic Black Butte tower.

For more than 65 years, the historic Forest Service fire lookout tower stood like a sentinel atop Black Butte; then, suddenly, it was gone.

Al Chase is a local resident whose home looks out on Black Butte.

On the morning of Friday, December 7, he looked up at the million-year old cinder cone and noticed something different.

"I can look out my computer room window and look right at it," he said. "Right away, I noticed that it was gone."

Forest Service officials believe that the aging structure was brought down by a combination of deteriorated wood, a huge snow and ice load, and high winds.

"Just the other day," said Chase, "I photographed it, and it was all caked in snow. You could even see the cables that were holding it up, and that's quite a ways from here to be able to see the cables."

Chase lives about eight miles from the summit of Black Butte. Chase reported the tower's demise about the time that other people were beginning to notice.

First to reach the site -- on snowshoes -- were Forest Service employees Kirk Metzger and Glen Corbett.

Corbett is one of the many people who have manned the top of Black Butte since the first fire lookout was established more than 90 years ago.

"We came up from the southwest, below the cabin," said Corbett. "The porch of the cabin was completely covered with snow. I'd never seen it like that before, and everything was encrusted in rime ice."

She said they had to walk beyond the 1922 cupola lookout before they could see the base of the old tower.

"Then we saw that the tower was down. My first sense was one of sadness...that sense of history gone," Corbett said. "It looked like there was a load of snow and rime and it settled in on itself and then fell.

"The whole debris pile was only about 30 or 40 feet long," Corbett said. "There is quite a pile...not where the base was, but just off to the side."

Before it fell, the tower was 84 feet high.

Maret Pajutee, the current District Ecologist for the Forest Service, was one of those who actually manned the tower before it was condemned in 1990.

She recalls that, even in 1984, riding out a storm on top of the tower was plenty exciting.

"At that time it was pretty creaky and moved considerably in a high wind," she said. "It was a small but beautiful spot... like a little blue bird's nest in the sky."

She said that the inside of the cab had many layers of paint; but, during her tenure at least, the top layer of paint was blue.

In describing the life of a fire lookout, Pajutee said, "Nothing happens about 98 percent of the time. But for that 2 percent, you really have to be ready to perform and use your knowledge of the landscape and fire behavior to let people on the ground know what they're getting into."

Pajutee said that the tower, built in 1934, was unique because of its construction details and was the only one of its kind left in the region.

She allowed that, without helicopters and other modern equipment, construction of the tower was "quite an engineering feat."

History records that Cliff Ralston hauled the timbers and lumber to the top of the butte using pack horses. Two 20-foot sections of lumber were lashed to each side of a horse, and the other ends were tied to a second horse.

Negotiating the trail's tight switchbacks made each trip more than a little exciting.

The tower was actually assembled by a Civilian Conservation Corps crew under the supervision of Roy T. Moore.

The splendid tower was not the first fire lookout station on Black Butte.

The first lookout was reportedly built in 1910 by forest ranger Harve Vincent, who directed construction of 18-foot-high platforms in two trees that were promptly dubbed "squirrel nests."

The lookouts reportedly lived in tents, and the site was linked by telephone to the ranger's office in 1912.

The next improvement came in 1919 when lookout Lynn Wilson and others built a new platform on top of four tree trunks. Wilson also was afforded the added luxury of a cabin and a snow-fed cistern.

The still-existing lookout cupola was added three years later.

When the 1934 tower was condemned in 1990, the ancient little cupola was pressed back into service until the present tower was completed in 1994.

The Forest Service is warning would-be adventurers to stay well clear of the fallen tower.

"It's very hard to get up there right now," said Pajutee. "The wreckage is quite dangerous, with shattered timbers, broken glass and wires strewn about. Glass and other hazards could be obscured by snow, and the wreckage has not been stabilized."

Pajutee said that, when the structure was condemned, engineers estimated that it might stand for another 10-30 years. It lasted 11.

Owing to its historic status, the tower could not be destroyed, and the Forest Service had hoped to dismantle the structure in a manner so as to preserve much of its historic value, but funds never became available.

The tower suffered from deteriorated braces and stairs, and the cab was also in a state of decay.

The tremendous weight of the snow and ice apparently finally exceeded the tower's ability to support the load. Adding to the stresses were high winds.

Chase, who maintains his own weather equipment, recorded a wind gust of 54 mph at 7:15 p.m., December 6, and most observers have pegged that as a likely time for the tower's demise.

Plans for the future of the ruins are uncertain at his time, but the Forest Service envisions that an effort will be made to preserve as much of the historical context as possible.

But for the present, Corbett said, "There is nothing standing."