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NR Nomination

LOCATION AND PROPERTY NAME
address: historic name:Hoodoo Ridge Lookout
Troy vcty, Wallowa County current/other names:
assoc addresses:
block/lot/tax lot:
location descr:Umatilla National Forest, Walla Walla Ranger District twnshp/rng/sect/qtr sect:5N 42E 6
PROPERTY CHARACTERISTICS
resource type:district height (stories): total elig resources:5 total inelig resources:1
elig evaluation: eligible/significant NR Status: Individually Listed
prim constr date:c.1933 second date: date indiv listed:05/26/2015
primary orig use: Forest orig use comments:
second orig use: Single Dwelling
primary style: Late 19th/20th Amer. Mvmts: Other prim style comments:
secondary style: sec style comments:
primary siding: Steel siding comments:
secondary siding: Wood:Other/Undefined
plan type: architect:Forest Service and Civilian Conservation Corps
builder:Forest Service and Civilian Conservation Corps
comments/notes:
GROUPINGS / ASSOCIATIONS
Survey/Grouping Included In: Type of Grouping Date Listed Date Compiled
   Fire Lookouts and Associated Structures in the Umatilla National Forest Survey & Inventory Project 2002
   Umatilla National Forest National Forest
SHPO INFORMATION FOR THIS PROPERTY
NR date listed: 05/26/2015
ILS survey date: 09/26/2002
RLS survey date:
106 Project(s): None
Special Assess Project(s): None
Federal Tax Project(s): None
ARCHITECTURAL / PROPERTY DESCRIPTION
(Includes expanded description of the building/property, setting, significant landscape features, outbuildings and alterations)
Nestled in the Umatilla National Forest (Forest) of northeastern Oregon, the Hoodoo Ridge Lookout is a Forest Service fire lookout initially constructed in 1925 with a single crow’s nest and expanded in 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to include a larger tower and three buildings. From its construction to the 1970s, the site served as a fire lookout and (from 1933) crew living quarters from which to detect fires and other environmental occurrences within and around the Forest as it provided a better vantage than the nearby southern Long Meadows Guard Station. The Lookout lies seven miles west of Troy, Oregon, within Wallowa County at an elevation of 4,200 feet. Surrounded by dense forest, the site encompasses two discontiguous areas totaling 0.694 acres of relatively flat terrain sloping downward to the northwest that hosts five historic buildings and structures (all of which are contributing): the lookout tower structure, cabin, garage, outhouse, and crow’s nest. Accessible by Forest Road 620091 (not a contributing feature), the southern area includes the 1933 CCC group of four structures that sit to the south of the road in an L-shape covering an area of 0.58 acres. First encountered from the road is the lookout tower, a tall and slender structure of steel with a galvanized cab at the top. Southwest of the tower is a line of structures: from north to south is the cabin, garage, and outhouse, all of which are wood-sided, rectangular structures with steeply pitched roofs. The structures sit approximately 50 feet from one another and are encompassed by a rectangular boundary of arbitrary lines generally 50 feet from the structures. Slightly to the northwest by 0.35 miles of the 1933 group is the 1925 crow’s nest (the second area) situated on and within a tall ponderosa pine tree. A semblance of a wood ladder leads up the tree to the wood platform that is perched at the top. The boundaries of the crow’s nest contain the tree itself, wood platform structure, and surrounding area of 60 to 100 feet from the tree, for a total of 0.114 acres. The overall site overlooks the surrounding Umatilla National Forest while the perch of the steel lookout tower and crow’s nest afford expansive views of the Wehana–Tucannon Wilderness to the north and the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington.
HISTORY
(Chronological, descriptive history of the property from its construction through at least the historic period - preferably to the present)
Built by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) for the Umatilla National Forest, the Hoodoo Ridge Lookout is significant to the State of Oregon under National Register Criteria A and C under the areas of conservation, politics/government, and architecture with a period of significance of 1925 to 1933. The period of significance encompasses the period of construction and advancement of fire suppression technology at the station. The Hoodoo Ridge Lookout is eligible as a historic district for listing under Criterion A due to its associations with events significant to history, including the development of USFS fire-detection, suppression, and lookout sites on forest land in the state of Oregon. It is also associated with the CCC, a Depression-era federal work relief program that assisted the USFS with the development of infrastructure, lookout sites, and fire support on national forests and represents a regional expression of this federal program in Oregon. Additionally, the Hoodoo Ridge Lookout is eligible as a historic district under Criterion C as the station’s structures are representative types of USFS lookout station architecture built by foresters and the CCC using common and standardized plans for the structures, including the crow’s nest, Aermotor MC-39 -40 tower and cab, and administrative-type buildings. While there are other USFS lookout sites constructed within similar time periods throughout the state of Oregon and Umatilla National Forest, the Hoodoo Ridge Lookout is unique as one of the best examples of an intact lookout site of specialized structural types in the state of Oregon, including an early primitive lookout, manufactured steel tower, and CCC ground buildings that embody the history of USFS fire management and progression of fire-detection architecture.
RESEARCH INFORMATION
Title Records Census Records Property Tax Records Local Histories
Sanborn Maps Biographical Sources SHPO Files Interviews
Obituaries Newspapers State Archives Historic Photographs
City Directories Building Permits State Library
Local Library: University Library:Portland State
Historical Society: Other Respository:USDA Forest Service
Bibliography:
Arnst, Albert. We Climbed the Highest Mountains. Portland, Oregon: Fernhopper Press, 1985. Atwood, Kay, Sally Donovan, Dennis Gray, and Ward Tonsfeldt. Utility and Service Combined with Beauty: A Contextual and Architectural History of the USDA Forest Service Region 6: 1905-1960. Pacific Northwest Region: Bend, Oregon, April, 2005. Bassett, Jill. “Long Meadows Guard Station Building #1044 Evaluation Report.” USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, Umatilla National Forest, Walla Walla Ranger District, 2003. Clifford, Jodi. Oregon Butte Lookout Evaluation Report. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, Umatilla National Forest, Pomeroy Ranger District, 1994. Cox, James B. Historic Fire Lookouts on the Willamette National Forest: A Determination of Eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, Willamette National Forest, 1991. duBois, Coert. Systematic Fire Protection in the California Forests. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1914. Gillio, David (ed.) Lookouts in the Southwestern Region: Cultural Resources Management Report No. 8. Albuquerque, New Mexico: USDA Forest Service, Southwestern Region, 1989. Groben, W. Ellis. "Architectural Trend of Future Forest Service Buildings." Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service, 1940. Kresek, Ray. Fire Lookouts of the Northwest. 3rd ed. Revised. Fairfield, Washington: Ye Galleon Press, 2012. McArthur, Lewis A. Oregon Geographic Names. 6th ed. revised and enlarged by Lewis L. McArthur. Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society, 1992. Norcross, T. W. "Acceptable Plans, Forest Service Administrative Buildings." Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service, 1938. Otis, Alison T., William D. Honey, Thomas C. Hogg, and Kimberly K. Lakin. The Forest Service and The Civilian Conservation Corps: 1933-42. USDA Forest Service, 1986. Pinchot, Gifford. Breaking New Ground. Reprinted. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1974. Pyne, Stephen J. Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982. Roosevelt, Franklin Delano. "Inaugural Address to the 73rd Congress." In Nothing to Fear: The Selected Addresses of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1932-1945, by Franklin Delano, edited by B. D. Zevin Roosevelt. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1946. Salmond, John A. Roosevelt’s Tree Army: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942. Duke University, 1964. Sinclaire, Elizabeth. Historic Fire Lookouts on the Deschutes National Forest. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, Deschutes National Forest, 1991. Steen, Harold K. The U.S. Forest Service: A History. 3rd ed. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991. Thornton, Mark V. Fixed Point Fire-detection: The Lookouts. USDA Forest Service, Region 5 (California), 1986. Throop, E. Gail. Utterly Visionary and Chimerical: A Federal Response to the Depression. Masters Thesis, Portland, Oregon: Portland State University, 1979. Tomlinson, Jan M. Fire Lookouts and Associated Structures on the Umatilla National Forest: A Determination of Eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places. USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region: Umatilla National Forest, 2002. Tucker, Gerald J. History of the Northern Blue Mountains. Manuscript on file, USDA Forest Service, Umatilla National Forest, Supervisor’s Office, Pendleton, Oregon, 1940. USDA Forest Service. Forest Fire-detection. Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1969. USDA Forest Service. Records of the Umatilla National Forest. Pendleton, Oregon.