Scorched Around the Edges, the Santa Cruz Mountains Brace for Fire Season
by Lisa Robinson
The decommissioned Eagle Rock Lookout Tower succumbed to fire on August 4, 2018. Eagle Rock, at an elevation of 2488 ft, is thehighest peak in the area, towering above Buzzard’s Roost and Pine Mountain. A popular hiking destination on Ben Lomond Mountain, Eagle Rock is located in Little Basin and offers a 360 degree panorama, which includes views of the surrounding mountains and many discernible features of Big Basin Redwoods State Park, as well as a glimpse of the ocean. In the 1930s, the Santa Cruz Mountains were being watched, from 5:00 am to 10:00 pm, by lookouts stationed in lookout towers on five peaks. Referred to as “the eyes that never sleep,” these men and women lookouts tirelessly scanned the landscape for signs of fire. In 1942, during WWII the Aircraft Warning Service mobilized the fire lookouts as enemy aircraft observation points. Two or more watchers scanned the skies 24 hours a day, 365 days a year until the war was over. The first to be erected, in 1922, is on Mount Bielewski, in Castle Rock State Park. It was the first fire lookout tower in California to be funded by the State Board of Forestry. The 60-foot steel tower had a ladder to reach the lookout post. This was later replaced by a staircase. Miles of telephone line directly connected the tower to the California Redwood State Park (Now Big Basin Redwoods State Park) and through the efforts of three local ranchers, to the Los Gatos telephone network.
The tower was dedicated on a Sunday afternoon in July. About 250 people attended the “simple but impressive” ceremony. State Forester Merritt B. Pratt talked about the usefulness of the fire lookout station system being established by his department, and that “this being the first one of these projects, Santa Cruz County may consider itself fortunate and honored.” It cost almost $5000 to build.
Visitors were welcome to the tower and local residents Simon and Rachel Herring of Los Gatos and Joseph and Anna Herring of Los Angeles gave the gift of a telescope to the tower for use by the towerman, Fred Herring, (their son and brother respectively,) and visitors alike.
The second to be built was the Loma Prieta tower in 1927. This wooden tower was dismantled and rebuilt in 1934, taller and in steel. This tower proved to be very popular with visitors. In fact, between 1927 and 1933, 5180 visitors had registered at the site. In 1934, for some reason, thieves broke a window to gain access to the tower and stole the visitor register. It closed in 1979.
In 1935, a suppression station with a tower on the Summit close to the intersection of Skyline and Highway 9 was completed. The lookout tower was built on top of a 5000-gallon capacity water tower and was 40 feet high.
Two more were completed in 1938, both on Big Basin Redwood State Park land; one on Eagle Rock that was unfortunately destroyed by fire very recently, and one on Chalk Mountain, the most isolated in the County. The Chalk’s lookout, manned in the 1940s by a Mrs. Sweet, a petite, 57 year old ex-accountant, was closed in the mid-1960s. During the 1960s and 70s most of the fire lookouts, and the dedicated fire spotters, were phased out. At one time there were over 600 in California.
Mount Bielewski and Eagle Rock were among the last to be closed in 1992 due to lack of funding, an act that was seen to be short-sighted at the time, since it only cost about $52,000 per year to operate the two towers during the fire season – a fraction of the cost of fighting a fire.
Today, some of the lookouts have been converted into holiday cabins, nine of which are in California. You can rent the lookouts through an organization called recreation.gov.
Eagle Rock Tower Watchlog
November 4, 1934: “Work on the latest link of the county’s fire suppression system was under way in the San Lorenzo Valley today. It is the erection of a lookout tower on Eagle Rock behind Boulder Creek.
Men from the CCC camp at Big Basin have been impressed into service on the tower and in the construction of a road leading to the top of the peak which will give the forestry service a commanding view of the entire west end of the county.” (Oakland Tribune)
July 25, 1944: “The fire warden said he was ready to call on nearby army posts for help if the fire jumps the ridge and threatens to reach the proportions of the 1936 blaze, which burned from September 26 to October 30 in that year and was fought by hundreds of men and CCC boys.
It was first sighted by the Eagle peak lookout station on Empire ridge shortly after 4:30 a.m., and a few minutes later by the Bielawski lookout on Skyline boulevard south of Saratoga gap. A fog obscured visibility, but was too high to be of benefit to the firefighters.” (San Mateo Times)
August 11, 1978: “A quick attack by the California Department of Forestry this morning confined a fire which broke out on China Ridge at the northeast boundary of Big Basin State Park to little more than an acre.
The fire first was spotted just after 8 a.m. by a tower lookout at Eagle Peak who noticed a “bubble” in the fog. Heat caused the bubble, according to firemen.” (The Times – San Mateo)
October 3, 1975: “Veteran fire lookout Clifford “Mac” McLaughlin has reluctantly given up his post high in the Santa Cruz mountains near Big Basin. He has spent the past 17 years at Eagle Rock Lookout tower during the summer fire season for the San Mateo-Santa Cruz Ranger unit of the California Division of Forestry.
The tower perched on the top of the 2,500 foot mountain, offers a commanding view. On exceptionally clear days, McLaughlin said, you can see the Farallon Islands to the north, the snow line on the Sierra Nevadas to the East, and a 75-mile stretch of Pacific Ocean to the West.
Thick redwood forests cover the lower hills in the immediate area surrounding Eagle Rock. It is hard to imagine that the Bay Area–entirely hidden from the Eagle Rock by the Skyline Boulevard ridge–lies so close to the rugged setting. (The Times – San Mateo)
A Place in History
The National Historic Lookout Register is a cooperative effort of the U.S. Forest Service, the Forest Fire Lookout Association, state agencies and other private groups to recognize historic fire lookouts throughout the United States. For over a century, lookouts have been a proud symbol of forest conservation. Here, we recognize individual lookouts that have helped in fire detection and wildfire management for at least 50 years.
Listing in the National Historic Lookout Register is often a first step towards nomination to the National Register of Historic Places maintained by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Sometimes necessary structural modifications preclude listing in the latter register, and the only appropriate recognition given to these historic lookout sites is that afforded by the NHLR. www.nhlr.org