VALLEY COUNTY
NORTON RIDGE
Payette > Boise National Forest
18N-12E-25
18N-12E-25
1934: A L-4 standard lookout house was constructed. The lookout site is within the boundaries of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.
August 12, 1936: "A new regional record in accuracy was awarded by forest service officers here to Len Ackaret and "Chick" Walker of Payette forest, who dropped 40 pounds of beef and five pounds of butter from an airplane above Norton Ridge lookout station recently and landed it on the station stove.
The supplies broke the station window and also the stove, however, and were considered unfit to eat after particles of glass and iron were picked out.
The fire guards in the station, whose peace was shattered by the crashing of glass and the cave-in of the little stove, could only rush from the room and shake their fists impotently at the airplane circling above." (The Salt Lake Tribune)
2014: During the summer a Treasure Valley Back Country Horsemen crew bundled shingles, Arnold Aviation flew the shingles to the Middle Fork of the Salmon River and from there the TVBCH packed the material to the lookout for storage until a time that the work can be completed.
The Treasure Valley Back Country Horsemen received grants from the South West Idaho RAC and the Idaho Heritage Trust to fund the Norton Ridge lookout restoration.
August 2015: "The Treasure Valley BCH went in and completed re-roofing the Norton Lookout, as well as painting a little bit of the bottom (3 boards?) of the building. It proved a difficult trip: one of our members lost a horse." (Correspondence from Alice Millington)