Legend has it that if you look at the rock from a certain angle, you can see the profile of an Indian warrior. In times gone by, we use to call male Indians bucks thus the name. Native Americans referred to the rock as Finger Rock.
Located in the Sequoia National Forest, Kings Canyon National Patrk. Buck Rock Lookout sits perched atop a granite dome and offers a breathtaking view of the Great Western Divide and other spectacular high mountain peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Access to the top is via a series of stair flights (consisting of 172 steps) suspended from the side of the rock. The current lookout building was constructed in 1923 and is historically significant as a representation of the earliest 4-A style live-in cabs of which there are only three in existence in the world today.
In 1914, a telephone was installed and a phone line between Pinehurst and Buck Rock was carried by mules and restrung at the beginning of each season.
Originally, only long slim tree trunks with boards nailed across for steps led to the top. A series of ladders for climbing to the lookout.
In 1942, a stairway with 172 steps was added to ease the climb. By the 1980s, electricity replaced gas and wood as a source of energy, and today the lookout enjoys many of the modern conveniences of most homes.
The story begins in 1876 when the first fire lookout was built by the Southern Pacific Railroad on Red Mountain near Donner Summit to watch for train fires. In 1905, Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot reorganized the forest reserves into the United States Forest Service. Pinchots philosophy of "total exclusion" of fires made it necessary to create an efficient organization of fire prevention and detection. Within three years California constructed its first two permanent forest fire lookout stations.
Initially, fire lookouts were crude camps temporarily set up at "patrol points" where an observer might ride his horse to make observations. Others were "crows nests" platforms built atop the highest trees. Fire watchers often doubled as fire fighters. Spotting a smoke, he would hop on his horse or hike cross-country to quench the fire. By 1914, construction standards were in place and soon thereafter, both wooden "live-in" cabs and steel "observation only" towers were being built. Two years later 81 permanent lookout structures stood on key mountain tops.
Then came the 1930s. America was in the throes of the Great Depression. As President, Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized government programs to put the unemployed back to work. Labor work forces like the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCCs) were assigned to various public works projects and building fire lookouts was one of those. It was also the time when forestry departments nationwide were determined to put a fire lookout on top of every mountain to protect valuable timber resources. Constructing lookouts became a priority, and with the help of the CCCs, fire watch towers sprung up across the land. Builders seemed undeterred by the precarious and remote locations of many stations. In their heyday, over 8,000 lookouts dotted the countryside, over 600 in California alone.
World War II sparked a new development in the history of fire lookouts. In the spring of 1942, the Army Air Forces arm mobilized the Aircraft Warning Service and utilized fire lookouts across the country as enemy aircraft observation points. Two or more watchers staffed each lookout 24 hours a day 365 days a year until the war ended. Americas entry into the war brought about another change for fire lookouts women. In 1944, females joined the Forest Service work force and began a long tradition of staffing fire towers.
The vigor was not to last. During the 1960s and 1970s most fire lookouts and their dedicated watchers were phased out. With increased emphasis on using airplanes and helicopters for fire detection and suppression, a "let-burn" policy in many wilderness areas and a growing number of visitors and residents in the forests, attitudes towards staffing lookouts have changed. Fire lookouts across the country face extinction. Today there are only a few hundred in operation. Once considered a proud symbol of our nations conservation heritage, fire lookouts are a fading legacy.
http://buckrock.org
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I've been there. Man, what a climb, but such an awesome view!
hebshog 1 year ago