Steven Palmer
"Gearhart Mountain Lookout"
"Gearhart Mountain Lookout"
Colorado Freight Station Museum (Greeley, CO)
"Oregon California & Eastern Railway" HO Layout
Elevation: 4664
Status: Standing
Year built: 1939
Structure type: Metal 40-foot tower with wood L-4 cab
This fictional "Gearhart Mountain Lookout" sits high on the Greeley Freight Station Museum's HO layout. It is situated perfectly to get a reading on the forest "fire" that rages periodically below. Thanks to Steve Palmer of the museum for the invented history and statistics of the lookout:
"The Gearhart Forest Service fire lookout tower was constructed of wood and built in 1939. The wood tower was destroyed by a winter storm in the winter of 1965. The orginal 40 foot wood tower was replaced with a metal 40 foot with a standard wood L-4 lookout building on top. Steel was used for the new tower as it could be brought to the site by rail, located just down the mountain on the west side. Most rebuilt towers were of wood due to the necessity of transporting the materials to a remote site. To this day (Summer of 1975) the US Forest Service maintains and mans the tower every summer."
Visit the Greeley Freight Station Museum for more information.
Note: On the real Gearhart Mountain in Oregon, there were once actually two lookout towers. According to Dave Bula, Western Deputy Chairman, FFLA, the first structure there was an emergency only L-5 cab (10x10) on the ground built in the 1930s. The second lookout structure was an R-6 flat cab on a 10 foot treated timber tower built in the 1950s. But even the second one has been gone for decades now. Visit the Former Fire Lookout Sites Register for more information.