Old and new fire lookout towers, Depot Mountain, ca. 1920
Item 19115 info
Maine Forest Service
In 1904, Elmer Crowley, a recent forestry graduate of the University of Maine who worked for M.G. Shaw Lumber Company, was on top of Big Squaw Mountain when he suggested it would be a good idea to put a fire watchman on top of the mountain.
A year later, M.G. Shaw Lumber built a fire lookout tower on the mountain, the first continuously operated forest fire lookout tower in the country.
At left is a view of the new, 63-foot steel tower on Depot Mountain in Aroostook County and the old platform and spruce tree tower.
The Depot Mountain tower, at 1,300 feet, closed in 1973.
Clyde Fox of St. Pamphile, Province of Quebec, was the watchman in 1917. Grover Bradford of Sebec was the chief warden.
The tower is one of several located in Maine that looks into Canada.
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