You'll find this "D-6" cupola-style lookout at 7,418 ft. atop Dutchman's Peak in the far southwestern corner of Oregon. It was built in 1927, and stands guard over a wide swatch of the Siskiyou National Forest, and also looks south into the Klamath River drainages in Northern California. The structure is on the National Historic Lookout Register, and is an easy one mile walk off the nearby Pacific Crest Trail.... It is one of the two or three highest altitude towers in the State. The highest is 8,338 ft. Ireland Mountain Lookout, 35 miles SSW of LaGrande in an interesting historic mining district near Vinegar Hill and Sumpter, in the Blue Mountains.

Osborne Firefinder--- here's a picture of the centerpiece of all fire lookout towers for many decades. The Firefinder was combined with three other key tools to get the job done. Those other three tools were the finder's "map board," a good pair of binoculars (usually 7x50s), and some kind of radio or telephone. Often one can discover old telephone wire or insulators deep in the forests heading downslope from an old lookout tower location. Usually such telephone wire would end at an old Forest Service Guard station or other such location.

Here is an excerpt from the minutes of the 1995 Forest Fire Lookout Association's Western Meeting in June: "...Ray Kresek closed out the indoor session with a presentation on the evolution of the firefinder and lookout structures. A brief history of the Osborne firefinder was given, with each model on display. Along with handouts, his 100-slide presentation depicted the firefinders used in the West, and various lookout cabin and tower designs of the world. Featured were: trees, from the simplest crow's nest to the 178' tall tree with a 20' tower and cab built in its top near Glouchester, West Australia; the "Guardian of the Gulch", a bell tower still present at Helena, Montana; the first forest lookout (Bertha Hill, ID 1902); one, two, three, and four-legged tower evolution; the first standard cabin design (D-6 cupola 1915); D-1 and D-3 log cupolas; some 30 original and unique designs; the first L-4 (1929), and 1930, 1933, and 1936 variations of the L-4; L-5 cab; L-6 (8' x 8'); and classic, spectacular, and precarious lookouts of the world...." My note: Ray Kresek is the author of at least two excellent books about our Fire Lookout heritage: one is "Fire Lookouts of the Northwest," YeGalleon Press, 1998, 414 big, picturesque pages.

Mr. W.B. Osborne was an early Forest Service employee, who also is credited with the invention of a specific kind of panoramic camera that was in heavy use on the mountaintops of the West during the 1930s.