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I took these pictures in about 2001. Two years after I took these pictures, with the help of the lookout person manning Mt. Pisgah, I viewed historic photos from 1931, showing that at that time there was a Black Mtn. lookout "tower" that was a "tree tower." In other words, each day the lookout climbed a lofty ladder up a huge ponderosa pine and sat on top on a little open platform all day! In similar situations at other tree lookouts, the person came down from the tree in the evening and slept on the ground in a cozy cabin such as the one displayed here. My maps tell me that the Black Mountain that the lookout person was describing is a 5326 ft. peak about 9 air miles SE of Mt. Pisgah. But close-up aerial views with Google Earth show a broad, flat expanse with only a suggestion of ancient tire tracks and no evidence of a cabin foundation, outhouse, etc. (see more discussion below)....Viewers are invited to email so that the history of this particular lookout might be fleshed out more completely. brucej@oregonphotos.com

(Above) The angular black thing at bottom left is the cabin's wood-burning stove/oven combo. Below, colorful posters identifying Northwest flowers and fish, as seen on the walls of the lookout.

Below is a more likely site of the cabin. It's a 5435 ft. high mountaintop named "Black Mtn," it's 90 air miles NE of Prineville and 82 air miles from where the cabin currently sits. There's what appears to be an old foundation in the picture (see picture). This site is actually northeast of Meacham.

Meanwhile, in Ray Kresek's book about Oregon's lookouts I found what appears to be the tree lookout that the lookout person on Mt. Pisgah told me about. .... In Kresek's book it's named only "Black," with a date of 1940, (this may be when it was abandoned).... This 5326 ft. site is far closer to the current location of the cabin, but its broad, flat and bare summit seems devoid of any place a cabin would have stood. And the only route to the top is an ancient, barely-visible set of tracks. How would anyone have transported the cabin from such a place?

To further confuse matters, the broader Central Oregon area sports a couple other peaks with "Black" in their names, such as Black Butte near Black Butte Ranch Resort, which does have a lookout on its 6400 ft. summit. In summary, I'm still not sure where the cute lookout cabin at the old Ochoco Ranger Station came from!