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Get Out! Old towers watch over N.C. forests
Journal Photo by Lisa O'Donnell
Moore’s Knob at Hanging Rock State Park has a historic lookout tower.
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Published: April 25, 2008
Peter Barr laughs when he looks back at a hiking trip he took about five years ago.
He was a student at UNC Chapel Hill, attempting to complete the outdoors-adventure component to an award he hoped to get.
His goal was to hike from the eastern end of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the western end.
Barr, a novice hiker at the time, traversed the rugged Smokies wearing tennis shoes and lugging a 60-pound pack.
At some point into the hike, he stumbled upon Shuckstack Lookout Tower, an old steel fire tower that shoots 60 feet into the air. Carefully, Barr climbed up 78 wooden, creaky steps.
"I was actually pretty afraid of it," Barr said. "But all the hard work was worth it at the top."
What Barr took in at the top was a stunning 360-degree view of the Smokies, the Appalachian Trail and Fontana Dam among other points.
Since that hike, Barr has become a devotee of lookout towers. His new book, Hiking North Carolina's Lookout Towers, includes hikes to 26 lookout towers in Central and Western North Carolina. Barr also includes notes on each tower's history, condition and elevation, and what a person can expect to see at the top.
Barr said he was drawn to lookout towers for a couple of reasons.
"They offer incredible views. Every time you get on top of a lookout, you're getting a breathtaking 360-degree view. The southern Appalachians are usually forested, and you can't see out," said Barr, who lives in Concord.
View of history, too
The towers also stir something nostalgic in him. The towers are historic structures that played a vital role in protecting the forests in the first half of the 20th century. Many of the towers included small living quarters for watchmen, and Barr said he liked imagining what it was like for those men to live in isolation in such rugged country.
"What an incredible job, to look out on top of the world," he said.
Barr said there are about 120 towers in the state. He limited his book to those in the western and central parts of the state, because they are located on state or national land and are easily accessible to hikers. Many towers in the eastern half of the state are fenced off or don't have hiking trails leading to them.
In our area, the closest towers are on Moore's Knob at Hanging Rock State Park in Danbury and Rendezvous Mountain at Rendezvous Mountain Educational State Forest in Wilkes County.
Lookout towers started springing up in the 1920s as a way for the U.S. Forest Service to monitor its millions of acres. Early towers were made of wood and later steel. In 1933, several towers were built by men working with the Civilian Conservation Corps. The towers these men built were noted for their fine stone-masonry work, according to Barr.
By the end of the 1930s, Barr writes, the state had an extensive network of fire detection thanks to the towers. At most, the state had more than 200 lookout towers, he said.
There is not one inventory of the state's fire towers, which made researching the towers difficult. Some are owned by the U.S. Forest Service, others are owned by the state or the National Parks System. Barr also found some on topographical maps. A few times, he took off in search of a tower only to find that it was no longer there.
Lookout towers were the main way to detect fires until the mid-1960s, when planes began air patrols. Many towers were decommissioned and have fallen into disrepair.
Barr hopes to change that. He is director of the state's chapter of the Forest Fire Lookout Association, an organization dedicated to raising awareness about lookouts. He hopes the state chapter and his book can stir enough interest in the towers so that they can be preserved for hikers to enjoy.
For more information about lookout towers, visit www.firelookout.org.
Barr will be signing copies of his book at 7 p.m. May 1 at Barnes and Noble in Winston-Salem.
Foot Note: The Olympic team trials in slalom canoe and kayak will be today through Sunday at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte. The trials are the second of three competitions where paddlers can earn points toward selection to the Olympic team. The competition will be from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Visit www.usnwc.org for more information.
■ Lisa O'Donnell can be reached at 727-7420 or at lo'donnell@wsjournal.com.
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