FREMONT COUNTY
BISHOP MOUNTAIN
Caribou-Targhee National Forest
12N-42E-30
12N-42E-30
c.1937: The 72-foot steel Aermotor MC-40 tower with a 7x7 cab was erected by members of the Company 2515, Camp Porcupine, of the Civilian Conservation Corps.
September 2, 1937: "A forest fire covering approximately 400 acres, was reported Tuesday morning about 11 o'clock by the lookout man on Bishop mountain. The fire, the largest on the Targhee in the past two years, is located in Shotgun valley near Bishop lake.
About 150 men, mostly from the Porcupine CCC camp, were rushed to the fire, which is accessible by road, and began fighting immediately, under the direction of Paul Shank and Rufus H. Hall, forest rangers." (The Post-Register)
September 19, 1937: "Wilbur Nelfert has been stationed on Bishop mountain lookout for the remainder of the fire season." (The Post-Register)
July 21, 1938: "Wilbur Neifert, from the lookout station on Bishop mountain, spent the week end in Ashton." (The Post-Register)
October 27, 1952: "The chickens literally have come home to roost as a byproduct of the drawn out dry season in the Targhee forest. At the Bishop Mountain fire lookout north of Ashton, fire watcher Hazen Hawkes has a flock of Richardson or blue grouse that surround him whenever he steps down from the lookout tower or out of the cabin.
About a month ago he observed three near the cabin and noted that they looked droopy and half sick. Knowing that they seldom hunted up a running stream for their water but depended on dew and the melting snows of the high altitudes they favor, he acted on a hunch and set a pan of water. 'They went for it like a desert rat for a mirage,' he reports, 'and perked up in no time.'
In some fashion they passed the word along. Every day the flock increased until now it crowds the 40 mark." (The Post-Register)
June 14, 1961: "Idaho guardsmen were on the firing line again today with everything from howitzers to bazookas.
In eastern Idaho, engineer units are building five miles of road from the base of Bishop Mountain to a forest lookout at the top, and improving seven miles of Antelope Flat road." (Idaho State Journal)
May 23, 1986: Entered on the National Register of Historic Places.