DOUGLAS COUNTY
DAMEWOOD POINT
Western Lane FPA
21S-8W-03
21S-8W-03
1940: $117.67 was expended on snag and tree removal.
1942: A tree topped at 96 foot with an 8x8 platform reached by a steel ladder that once was used on the Baker Point lookout in northwest Oregon.
May 1942: "Delivering a 90-foot steel ladder for a lookout tower by water for at least the greater part of the distance is one of the most recent innovations of Ray Oglesby, district warden of the Western Lane County Fire Patrol association. Oglesby had selected a particular tree for a lookout which was located on a high point above Mosetown on Smith river. He had his choice of transporting the 18-foot sections of the ladder over a trail for a distance of ten miles or taking them by boat down Smith river to Mosetown, a distance of some thirty miles. He chose the latter.
The navigators selected for the trip included Don Kyle, Kenneth Hooker, and Wm. Carlisle. These men secured two old boats of little value, loaded one of them with the ladder and the other with packs and incidentals. They started from a point on Smith river a few miles below Gunter at 11 a.m., April 25 and arrived at their destination on the afternoon of April 29. At one point they were forced to submerge one of the boats in order to get beneath a windfall.
Oglesby states that he is now planning to build a couple of punts and use then for transporting the lumber for the crow's nest, guy wires and other material to Mosetown." (The Forest Log)
August 1942: "J.W. 'Pete' Kibby, former CCC foreman, high-climber, prospector and now employed by the Western Lane Forest Protective Association, has recently completed construction of a crow's nest for a lookout in Section 3. township 21 south, range 8 west, which is near the mouth of Mosetown creek in the Smith river country, according to District Warden H.R. Oglesby.
Construction material was rafted down the river early in the spring and dragged to the lookout point with a horse. Kibby topped the tree at 96 feet and constructed an 8 x 8 foot platform. The platform is reached by a steel ladder which was salvaged from the old Baker Point lookout in the Northwest Oregon district.
The lookout, known as Damewood Point, overlooks a considerable portion of the lower Smith River country in the association territory which is particularly hazardous and includes a large portion of the area burned by the Smith River fire of 1938." (The Forest Log)
1943: A split board structure costing $214.35 built.