CAREY DOME |
Idaho County - Payette National Forest - 24N-4E-24
|
1934: 72-foot Aermotor MC-40 steel tower and cabin living quarters constructed.
August 20, 1944: "Not long ago, a pert young high school boy reported a fire on the Cara Dome lookout. The one-wire telephone line in the Warren ranger district hummed with laughter.
Mabel and Helen Ross, comely Salt Lake city sisters, joined in the laughter, for they are, in effect, the Cara Dome lookout. Since July 1, these two junior high school teachers have 'manned' the lookout tower built on a 7,000-foot peak on the edge of the Idaho primitive area.
It's a case of women taking over where only man once trod. A lookout station in fire season is indeed lonely and confining. The lookout must be on the job, day and night, and during daylight hours must peer constantly around him in search of the smoke that signals a fire.
But, because the job does not require excessive physical labor, women, high school boys and retired business men and teachers are well fitted for the task, and the forest service called upon them to alleviate the tremendous wartime man power shortage that had struck at its crews of fire fighters." (The Salt Lake Tribune)