JACKSON COUNTY
BESSIE ROCK
Rogue River National Forest
32S-4E-27
32S-4E-27
May 13, 1913: "District No. 10, (Bessie) - It is proposed this season to extend the telephone line to the top of Bessie Rock and place a lookoutman there. In this way complete control control of the district is assured." (District Fire, Fire Plan - History of the Rogue River National Forest, Volume 1 - 1893-1932 - Carroll E. Brown)
1931: "Plans were also formulated for a lookout house at Bessie Rock." (History of the Rogue River National Forest, Volume 1, - Carroll E. Brown)
October 15, 1931: "Jack Grow is working on the Bessie Rock ranger lookout station, high on the Cascade divide. He is expected home the latter part of this week." (Medford Mail Tribune)
January 3, 1932: "Of the six new lookout and firemen stations constructed, the most interesting was the Bessie Rock location at the top of that high elevation between the middle fork of the Rogue river and Red Blanket creek. It is the most picturesque and isolated of all the forest's lookout stations and the hardest to establish.
This new station is reached by an 85-foot ladder from the base of Bessie Rock. All the material has to be packed up the steep ladder, after having been hauled to that location on mules, six miles, from the Imnaha ranger station. This lookout commands a view of 30 miles in all directions over expanses of fine timber." (Medford Mail Tribune)
August 19, 1941: "Even with Ginger for company the forest lookout atop Bessie Rock in the Mt. Pitt country was a lonely place. Now its twice as lonely for Roy G. Pursel.
When Pursel trekked to his lofty summer perch he took 18-month-old Ginger, half Boston Bull, half Fox Terrier. To reach the lookout it is necessary to scale a 96-rung ladder. Around the lookout house is a catwalk below which is a drop of 96 feet on one side and 200 on the other.
Ginger made 25 rungs of the ladder herself and was carried the remaining distance by Purcel. Once up there she made out pretty well until she got to chasing packrats around the catwalk. The other day she skidded on the 200-foot side and went overboard. When Pursel reached her at the base of the rock she was dead." (The Klamath News)
1941: The lookout staffed 105 days. Communications by Columbia Utilities Company to the Butte Falls Ranger Station.
August 16, 1953: "Merlyn Guss, 17, son of Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Guss underwent an emergency appendectomy late Friday, after being brought to Sacred Heart hospital from the top of the Bessie Rock forest lookout, where he was a fire spotter for the U.S. forest service.
Young Guss reported his illness by radio Friday, and forest service men immediately started out to get him down. The lookout is about 10 miles due east of Prospect, and Guss had to be carried down 3 1/2 miles of trail where a Conger-Morris ambulance was waiting for him." (Medford Mail Tribune)
1969: The lookout destroyed.
STATION DESCRIPTION
DESCRIBED BY COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY 1933 (FGJ)
THIS INTERSECTED POSITION IS CENTER OF BESSIE ROCK LOOKOUT HOUSE
OF U.S.F.S., SITUATED ON SUMMIT OF BESSIE ROCK, PROMINENT CRAG
IN CASCADE RANGE, ELEVATION 5959 FEET, ABOUT 15 MILES SW OF CRATER
LAKE. POINT IS ABOUT 1 MILE NW OF BESSIE ROCK GUARD STATION,
AIR LINE, AND MAY BE REACHED BY FOREST TRAILS.