It seems like spring break got away from me without my being about to get out and visit the lookout towers like I wanted. This Friday was one of the best days, as far as weather was concerned, so I was able to visit some of the locations. My target would be those towers located in Northwestern South Carolina, along with any other interested tidbits I might discover along the way. It was a push, but I managed to visit eight tower locations in one day. (more…)

One of my Twitter friends alerted me to an Aermotor Fire Tower that was being sold by North Carolina as surplus.  The tower is described as follows:

Fire Lookout Tower,72’9″”H with 6×6 Cab Tower and Steps are in useable condition Radio antennae do not come with the tower. **Location of Building: Off US Hwy 23 on Bear Branch Rd. in Mars Hill, NC, Madison County

I immediately e-mail Laura to see what she thought about it, and the following e-mail exchange ensued…

Me:  Do you think our neighbors would mind if we put this thing up in the back yard?

Laura:  YES!

Me:  Yes, we can buy it?  Or, yes, they would mind?

Laura:  Yes, they would mind!

Me:  We could tell them it was for neighborhood watch.  We might even be able to get Homeland Security funding for it.

Laura:  No thanks… can you imagine the county zoning committee dealing with a request like that?  just say no…

Me:   But if we told them it was also a “prayer tower” then we might get the BJU contingent to agree.  …although that might sound a little too Islamic for their tastes.

Laura:  NO!

I guess we’re not getting a fire tower in our back yard.

It was a beautiful day, so I decided to try to find some of these lookout towers I had been researching. I picked three that would be within driving range before it got dark. Since it was a quiet day I left the office at 4:00 and headed south toward my first target.

1. Hobbyville Lookout Tower

This was one of those towers that was on the FFLA list but not on any of my GIS data. I had an approximate location, and was hoping that I would be able to see it as I got close.

As I drove down I-26 I did catch a glimpse of the tower, so I knew it was still standing. However, I started to second guess myself as I saw cell towers and steel powerlines. Had I only thought I had seen it, and had it actually been one of these other towers? Soon, though I did find the correct road and was able to drive to the base of the tower.

The story at the actual location was one that would repeat itself throughout the evening. There were lots of people living nearby, and a house a mailbox were right at the base of the tower. I pulled over to get a shot of the cab, but folks seemed mighty curious about my intentions.

At least I was able to confirm that the tower is still standing and ascertain its correct location. Both cab and tower looked to be in fairly good shape, given the age.

From the Hobbyville Tower I headed south on Mountain Shoals Road toward Enoree (once called Mountain Shoals), then took 221 to Ora. From Ora it was a straight shot to Barksdale and my second target of the evening, The Big Knob.

2. The Big Knob

While growing up in Gray Court the Big Knob and its twin on the other side of Highway 14, the Little Knob were two of our most prominent landmarks.  I’ve ridden my bike past the base of both hills many times, and when little I had nightmares about one or both of these hills turning into volcanoes (from watching too much scifi and Johnny Quest on TV, I’m sure.)  I’ve never been to the summit of either.

I do remember that at one time there was a dirt road leading to a house at the base of the tower.  This was visible from Bethel Church Road.  However, now that road is long gone, and the only access to the hill is through a gate leading to the radio towers at its base, which, of course, is locked.  I couldn’t find a view of the tower itself at all.  The only view could be gained from about a half-mile away on Georgia Road.  I was able to verify that the tower was standing, but have no clue as to its condition.

By this time the sun was sinking lower and lower, so I had limited time for my last target.  I drove north to Highway 418 and took it west to Fork Shoals Road, then turned north.  My goal this time was the Fork Shoals Tower.

3.  Fork Shoals Lookout Tower

It may not look like it, but there’s a tower back there somewhere.  I found Tower Road off of Fork Shoals Road with no problem.  I couldn’t really see the tower until I actually got to the road and turned down it.  This was one of the least friendly areas I had visited, with No Trespassing signs everywhere and barking dogs running up to the car.  As I pulled in to get this shot, a guy in pajamas and a bath robe stood in his front yard and stared at me.

I took what shots I could, hoping one of the tower shots wouldn’t be too blurred to use.  However, by that time of evening the lighting wasn’t great, so this was the only one that turned out.

The tower itself looked like it was in OK shape.  It was still standing, and the cab looked intact.  I couldn’t tell if anyone was living in the tender’s house or not.

Three towers in two hours was a bit more of a challange than I had bargained for.  I couldn’t get photos like I had wanted.  I would like to revisit each of these when I have enough time to set up a proper shot.

The map below shows the tower locations and the route I took…

View Larger Map

My first lookout tower adventure was actually Saturday afternoon, and I decided to hit a couple of local sites.  That morning I had called my good friend Cathy Taylor (no relation) who is a park ranger at Paris Mountain State Park.  It turns out that she has the same interest in fire towers, and was more than willing to share some information.

The first fire tower on Paris Mountain wasn’t on the summit.  Rather, it was a wooden structure located on the northeast side of the mountain.  Hikers can reach the former site by taking Fire Tower Trail to the remains of the tower’s foundation.  I’ve hiked the trail myself, although not recently, and there’s not much left of the tower.

That first location wasn’t ideal because the view was restricted to views north and east. At the time of the first tower’s construction the summit was unavailable, as it was part of the old Altmont Hotel property.  The old hotel eventually burned and the land was sold, making way for the current tower and the bristle of antennae that now cover the mountain’s summit.

As mentioned previously, I had made at least two treks to the tower as a child in the late 1960′s.  At about age seven I distinctly remember partially climbing the stairs, but getting scared and coming back down.  Later I remember climbing all the way to the trap door of the cab, but not entering.

On Saturday’s trip I was once again disheartened at the amount of trash and vandalism at the site.  This has always been a hangout, which means that the assets at the top of the mountain need some heavy-duty protection.

With all of the fencing and concertina wire it’s no longer possible to get to the base of the tower, but you can still get fairly close.

While the tower itself appears to be in good condition, the floor of the cab is now completely gone and there is no glass in the windows.

Unlike several other towers I’ve seen, this cab as a rotor vent on top of it. I guess it could get fairly hot up there.

From Paris Mountain I continued northward to Cleveland, SC. I found Firetower Road off of Highway 276 just before you get to Highway 11.

I drove to the top of the hill and could see where the tower used to be, but the tower was long gone. There didn’t appear to be any trace of the structure left – just a circular drive around a clearing where the tower used to be.

Even so, it wasn’t a disappointing trip. From that vantage point I was able to see Glassy Mountain with its tower off in the distance. Clearly these were set up to have line of site with other fire towers. I’m sure that if I had been able to scale the steps of the non-existent tower I would also have been able to see Paris Mountain, Sassafras Mountain, and several other tower sites.

You would think that something that stands 100′ high would be easy to find.  Certainly, when you’re close enough they are very visible.  However, locating lookout tower sites on maps turns out to be harder than I had thought. I knew of several definite locations such as the Duncan Tower, Glassy Mountain, Paris Mountain, and the Big Knob. However, a complete listing of the towers is nowhere to be found. Furthermore, many of the towers that do appear on lists no longer exists, such as the Cleveland Tower north of Marietta.

I’ve been able to find several lists, and have been trying to combine these into one comprehensive listing.  First there is the list created by the Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) for South Carolina.  This list has 154 sites, many simply labeled “Unknown.”

You can query the GNIS Name Server for the category “tower”, and that will return about 100 locations using either “lookout tower” or ‘fire tower” as a search term.  The University of South Carolina’s GIS department has a listing of towers for the ArcGIS system, but this information seems to be identical to the GNIS data.

Both of these data sets, the GNIS data and the FFLA data, have advantages as well as flaws.  The GNIS data is based on place name, so if the location doesn’t have the word “tower” in it, it doesn’t appear on the list.  Therefore several of the most prominent towers, such as Paris Mountain, Glassy Mountain, and the Big Knob are not included on the GNIS.   The FFLA data includes these sites, but the location information isn’t precise at all.  While it does include the latitude and longitude, in only has degrees and minutes – no seconds.  The GNIS locations are much more precise.

The image below illustrates this problem.  The yellow pushpin shows the location for the Chester Lookout Tower in Chester County based on the GNIS data.  The flag shows the location based on the FFLA data, which puts it about 1.3 miles away.  The red line in the image is “Fire Tower Road”.  Since the yellow pin is on that road, I’m guessing that is the more likely location.  Obviously this endeavor is going to require some trial and error as well as hunting.  I don’t even know if the Chester tower is still standing.

Speaking of “Fire Tower Road”, I found a lot of roads with this name in the state.  Seems logical.  But again, the names can be deceiving.  For example, Firetower Road in Cleveland, SC now dead ends at a hunt club.  The tower is no longer there.

One of the problems with creating these lists  is a matter of ownership – who actually controls these towers. In cases it’s the South Carolina Forestry Commission. I think there might be some owned by the US Forest Service, but I haven’t been able to confirm that, and some had been constructed by private concerns.  The SCFC has sold some of its towers.  Some of these still stand in place, some have been dismantled, and some have been relocated.  For example, in February of 2006 The State newspaper in Columbia reported that…

Charleston resident Tommy Hawkins recently bought himself an unusual birthday gift: two 100-foot lookout towers. One tower was dismantled from a Lake Murray site Monday, and the other in Ballentine is expected to start coming down today, his 68th birthday.

Hawkins is moving the towers to about 3,200 acres in Fairfield County, where he plans to retire. “I wanted to get out of the business and the city and get up into the country,” he said. As a child, he remembers climbing lookout towers for fun. He wanted to keep that memory alive, and he’s not alone. Today, lookout towers — once the primary method for spotting fires in wooded South Carolina — are being sold, mostly to individuals. In Richland and Lexington counties, six towers are up for sale or have been sold — for prices from $200 to $2,000.

The article goes on to say that the value of the 10-acre tracts that typically surrounded the towers has increased substantially, so that maintaining them even as “reserve space” becomes financially unviable.

As these locations are sold, the names may or may not be removed from the various lists that I have access to.   Some towers that were put up privately to begin with may not be on my lists at all.  For example, someone mentioned that there might be a tower at Camp Croft State Park in Spartanburg County.    This was originally a military camp, and if there was a lookout tower, it would have been put up by the military and not the forest service, so it may not be on any of my lists.

I did manage to combine all of the data that I’ve been collecting into one resource.  I’ve got a master database that contains each list as a table.  I’ve also included a table for all the roads in the state called “Fire Tower” or “Firetower” or “Lookout”.  I took all of this data and plotted it on one master Google Earth KML file that I can update as I go along.  Even though the FFLA data may not be accurate, it will get me to the general vicinity.  Since everything is geocoded I can dump it all into my GPS units.

Of course the only way to really verify the data is to visit the locations.  Sure, I could make a couple of phone calls and e-mails, and I’m sure I will be doing quite a bit of that as this project progresses.  But it’s not nearly as fun as actually visiting the site and seeing what’s out there.