More about history of Fire Lookouts and their mountain perches, this one from the Smithsonian focusing on intrepid women doing the lonely work by Dina Gachman, March 29, 2021
Hallie Morse Daggett became the first female to serve as a Forest Service fire lookout. (Forest History Society, Durham, NC)
“Women have earned their place in the history of forest fire lookouts,” says Dixie Boyle, a longtime lookout and author going into her 34th season. She staffs a tower in the Cibola National Forest in New Mexico’s Manzano Mountains. Men like author Jack Kerouac brought attention to the job when he wrote about the 63 days he spent as a fire lookout in the summer of 1956 in books like The Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels, but it’s women like Hallie Morse Daggett, Helen Dowe and Boyle herself who deserve our attention.
Helen Dowe watches for fires from the Devil’s Head Fire Lookout in Pike National Forest, Colorado, in 1919. An Osborne Fire Finder is on the table. (Corbis via Getty Images)
