IDAHO COUNTY
BEAR MOUNTAIN (BEARGRASS MOUNTAIN)
Clearwater National Forest
36N-12E-26
36N-12E-26
1919: The lookout established as a tent camp.
1922: The log cabin used as living quarters built.
1924: A 40-foot high native timber tower with an open observation area erected.
April 14, 1951: "Now the forest service has dropped a lookout tower by parachute.
Aerial delivery of 134 members to build a fire lookout tower on Bear mountain has been completed, forest service officials said. The lookout site is 54 air miles southwest of here (Missoula) deep in the Selway wilderness area.
Fred Fite of the forest service fire control office said it was the first time timbers as long as 20 feet had been dropped by air in the forest service's growing aerial program.
A twin engine Douglas DC-3 of the Johnson Flying Service of Missoula made three trips over the mountain to drop the timbers. The total weight was 9,200 pounds.
Fite said the present lookout on 7,204-foot Bear mountain was built in 1923 and has become unsafe." (Independent Record)
1981: "Beargrass Mtn., as this feature was originally known, was first manned as a lookout in 1919 when Ranger Fitz Eagan moved two men with a tent camp to the point.
In 1920 Acting District Ranger Henry Nicol again placed two men on the point. Under direction of Ranger Elmer Walde the lookout and smokechaser at Bear Mtn. cut logs for a cabin at the point in 1921.
In 1922, Al Kolmorgan, Fish Lake District Ranger moved Charley Kinnick and Jess Upham to Beargrass where they erected the log building that served as lookout quarters there for many years. Telephone communication between Beargrass and Boulder Flat R.S. was established in 1923.
In 1924, Slim Tunstill, working for Ranger Ralph Hand, helped build a 40 foot high log tower with an open observatory at Beargrass. Several years later a glass enclosed observatory was added." (Louis Hartig, 'Historic Facilities of the Lochsa Ranger District' - 1981)