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44-586: The William Penn Memorial Fire Tower is a fire lookout tower located on Mount Penn in Lower Alsace Township, Pennsylvania . Named after William Penn , the structure is owned by the city government of nearby Reading, Pennsylvania , which the tower overlooks. Work on the structure began in late 1938 as a project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), with the tower completed the following year. The tower remained in regular use, both as

88-687: A cab, atop a large steel or wooden tower. Historically, the tops of tall trees have also been used to mount permanent platforms. Sometimes natural rock may be used to create a lower platform. In cases where the terrain makes a tower unnecessary, the structure is known as a ground cab . Ground cabs are called towers , even if they don't sit on a tower. Towers gained popularity in the early 1900s, and fires were reported using telephones, carrier pigeons and heliographs . Although many fire lookout towers have fallen into disrepair from neglect, abandonment and declining budgets, some fire service personnel have made efforts to preserve older fire towers, arguing that

132-402: A decline in the importance of the tower as a fire safety measure. Additionally, with minimal upkeep, the tower began to fall into a state of disrepair. In September 1988, one month short of the tower's 49th anniversary, the state government announced that it would close the tower to the public and stop using it for fire safety after a person was trapped in the tower following a stair collapse. In

176-457: A denuded tree and sat on a 2 ft × 2 ft (0.61 m × 0.61 m) platform chair atop that tree. An old fishing boat was once dragged to the top of a high hill and used as a fire lookout tower. Very little is known about the horse-mounted fire lookout, but they, too, rode the ridges patrolling the forest for smoke. Reading Senior High School Reading Senior High School , colloquially known as The Castle on The Hill ,

220-542: A few of the Maritime Provinces . Nova Scotia decommissioned the last of its 32 fire towers in 2015 and had them torn down by a contractor. The first fire lookout tower was built to the plans of Forstmeister Walter Seitz between 1890 and 1900, located in the "Muskauer Forst" near Weißwasser . Warnings were transmitted by light signal. For transmission of location, Seitz divided the forest area into so-called "Jagen", numbered areas, with that number to be transmitted to

264-536: A perimeter fence and a walkway that has a piece of decorative art depicting William Penn holding the Pennsylvania Charter . The idea for the fire lookout tower began in the late 1930s as part of an effort by Reading, Pennsylvania to create jobs in the midst of the Great Depression , as well as out of concern for the safety of the forest land that was owned by the city and county. On September 15, 1938,

308-548: A person watching the forest for wildfire can be an effective and cheap fire control measure. The history of fire lookout towers predates the United States Forest Service , founded in 1905. Many townships, private lumber companies, and State Forestry organizations operated fire lookout towers on their own accord. The Great Fire of 1910 , also known as the Big Blowup, burned 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km ) through

352-420: A sentinel in the forest attracting lost or injured hikers, that make their way to the tower knowing they can get help. In some locations around the country, fire lookout towers can be rented by public visitors that obtain a permit. These locations provide a unique experience for the camper, and in some rental locations, the check out time is enforced when the fire lookout operator returns for duty, and takes over

396-615: A terrestrial version for forest fire smoke detection was developed by DLR and IQ Wireless . Currently, about 200 of these sensors are installed around Germany, while similar systems have been deployed in other European countries, Mexico, Kazakhstan and the USA. Several Canadian provinces have fire lookout towers. Dorset, Ontario 's Scenic Tower was built on site of former fire lookout tower (1922-1962). Many fire lookout towers are simply cabs that have been fitted to large railroad water tank towers that are 30 to 60 feet (9 to 20 m) high. One of

440-492: A tourist attraction and as a legitimate lookout tower, for the next several decades, although deterioration to the building caused it to be closed in 1988. Starting in the late 1990s, a local nonprofit group began working to restore the tower, and it was reopened in 2004. The tower is listed on the National Historic Lookout Register , having been added in 1999. The tower is located at 2500 Skyline Drive in

484-474: A tourist attraction, offering scenic vistas. A hotel was also constructed during this time and stood from 1891 to 1959, when it was razed. The site of the hotel is today a cement platform near the current tower. The original tower operated from 1890 to 1923, when the wooden structure was destroyed in a purported act of arson. The tower stands 120 ft (37 m) tall and is made entirely of fireproof material, primarily concrete, stone, and steel. The interior of

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528-968: Is a 9–12 public high school in Reading, Pennsylvania . It was established in 1927 and is part of the Reading School District . With an enrollment of 5,213 as of the 2022-23 school year, it is the largest traditional high school in Pennsylvania and one of the largest high schools in the nation. The school supports a broad range of extracurricular activities. In the 2020-2021 school year, students could participate in Academic Challenge, Aevidium, Art Club, Baba Na Kaka International, Ecology, Knight Vision, Mock Trial, Peer Mentoring, Project Peace, E-Sports, National Honor Society , Sign Language Club, Strategic Gaming Club, Student Council, Tabletop Roleplay, World Language Club, and Yearbook. The school's mascot

572-729: The Adirondack Forest Preserve and Catskill Park , have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places . During the Edo period in Japan fire lookout towers ( 火の見櫓 , Hinomi-yagura ) housed the fire fighting team of town ( 町火消 , Machi-bi-keshi ) . Usually the fire lookout tower was built near a fire station ( 番屋 , Ban-ya ) , and was equipped with a ladder, lookout platform, and an alarm bell ( 半鐘 , Hanshō ) ( ja ). From these towers watchmen could observe

616-641: The Brown Company which owned over 400,000 acres of timberland, set up a series of effective forest-fire lookout towers, possibly the first in the nation, and by 1917 helped establish a forest-fire insurance company. In 1933, during the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt formed the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), consisting of young men and veterans of World War I. It

660-529: The Gloucester tree in Australia, added a permanent platform to the tree by building a wooden or, later, metal structure at the top of the tree, with metal spikes hammered into the trunk to form a spiral ladder. These 'platform trees' were often equipped with telephones, fire finder tables, seats and guy-wires . There are many different types of lookouts. In the early days, the fire lookout operator simply climbed

704-460: The fire lookout operator often receives hundreds of forest visitors during a weekend and provides a needed “pre-fire suppression” message, supported by handouts from the " Smokey Bear ", or " Woodsy Owl " education campaigns. This educational information is often distributed to young hikers that make their way up to the fire lookout tower. In this aspect, the towers are remote way stations and interpretive centers. The fire lookout tower also acts as

748-616: The Mount Penn Preserve of Lower Alsace Township, Pennsylvania . Located near the summit of Mount Penn at 1,239 ft (378 m) above sea level , the tower offers a 60-mile (97 km) radius view of the surrounding area, which, in addition to the nearby city of Reading , includes the Blue Mountain , the Delaware Water Gap , and Valley Forge . The tower is owned by the city government of Reading, although it does not own

792-583: The U.S. Midwest and South, but a few are in the mountainous West. In the northeast, all of the towers in the Adirondack Mountains and most in the Catskills were Aermotor towers erected between 1916 and 1921. The typical cab of an Aermoter had a 7 by 7 feet (2.1 by 2.1 m) cab with a fire locating device mounted in the center. Access was by way of a trap door in the floor. Ground cabs are still known as "towers" even though there may be no such tower under

836-525: The Walker family served as caretakers and wardens for the tower, which saw regular usage by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). In later years, decorative elements, such as stained glass and tile mosaics, were added to the tower. In the years following its opening, the tower began to decline in popularity as a tourist attraction, and advances in communication led to

880-468: The cab for the day shift. Fire lookout towers are an important part of American history and several organizations have been founded to save, rebuild, restore, and operate fire lookout towers. Starting in 2002, traditional fire watch was replaced by "FireWatch", optical sensors located on old lookout towers or mobile phone masts. Based on a system developed by the DLR for analyzing gases and particles in space,

924-436: The cab. These towers can be one, two or three stories tall with foundations made of natural stone or concrete. These towers vary greatly in size, but many are simple wooden or steel tower cabs that were constructed using the same plans, sans the tower. The simplest kind consist of a ladder to a suitable height. Such trees could have platforms on the ground next to them for maps and a fire finder. A more elaborate version, such as

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968-450: The city received a grant from the federal government of $ 15,091 through the Works Progress Administration to help fund the construction of the tower. An additional $ 18,445 was provided by the city government of Reading, for a total construction cost of $ 33,536. In addition to the tower, the WPA financing helped with the construction of a stone wall along Skyline Drive. The architect for the project

1012-730: The city. He received a patent for this system in 1902. Seitz traveled to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition for a presentation of his idea in the USA. As wood had been a key building material in Russia for centuries, urban fires were a constant threat to the towns and cities. To address that issue, in the early 19th century a program was launched to construct fire stations equipped with lookout towers called kalancha , overlooking mostly low-rise quarters. Watchmen standing vigil there could signal other stations as well as their own using simple signals. Surviving towers are often local landmarks. Fire towers are still in use in Australia, particularly in

1056-537: The country. While earlier lookouts used tall trees and high peaks with tents for shelters, by 1911 permanent cabins and cupolas were being constructed on mountaintops. Beginning in 1910, the New Hampshire Timberlands Owners Association, a fire protection group, was formed and soon after, similar organizations were set up in Maine and Vermont. A leader of these efforts, W.R. Brown , an officer of

1100-523: The entire town, and in the event of a fire they would ring the alarm bell, calling up firemen and warning town residents. In some towns the bells were also used to mark the time. While the fire lookout towers remained fully equipped into the Shōwa period , they were later replaced by telephone and radio broadcasting systems in many cities. Like the United States, fire towers were built across Canada to protect

1144-514: The fire is to be managed. The more modern policy is to "manage fire", not simply to suppress it. Fire lookout towers provide a reduction in time of fire detection to time of fire management assessment. Idaho had the most known lookout sites (966); 196 of them still exist, with roughly 60 staffed each summer. Kansas is the only U.S. state that has never had a lookout. A number of fire lookout tower stations, including many in New York State near

1188-418: The following morning." To prevent and suppress fires, the U.S. Forest Service made another rule that townships, corporations and States would bear the cost of contracting fire suppression services, because at the time there was not the large Forest Service Fire Department that exists today. As a result of the above rules, early fire detection and suppression became a priority. Towers began to be built across

1232-749: The last wooden fire lookout towers in Southern California was the South Mount Hawkins Fire Lookout, in the Angeles National Forest. A civilian effort is underway to rebuild the tower after its loss in the Curve Fire of September 2002. The typical cab of a wooden tower can be from 10 ft × 10 ft (3.0 m × 3.0 m) to 14 ft × 14 ft (4.3 m × 4.3 m) Steel towers can vary in size and height. They are very sturdy, but tend to sway in

1276-492: The late 1990s, calls to restore the nearby Pagoda led to renewed interest in also restoring the fire tower. In 1998, Pagoda-Skyline, Inc., a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving the Pagoda, began to investigate efforts to restore the tower, with initial cost estimates of about $ 1 million ($ 1800000 in 2022). By this point, much of the existing stairway had rusted to the point of no longer being usable. The following year, on October 30,

1320-541: The mountainous regions of the south-eastern states. Victoria 's Forest Fire Management operates 72 towers across the state during the fire season with towers being constructed as recently as 2016. Jimna Fire Tower in Southeastern Queensland is the tallest fire tower in the country, at 47 meters above the ground, and is included on the state heritage register. Today hundreds of towers are still in service with paid-staff and/or volunteer citizens. In some areas,

1364-429: The remaining fire lookout towers, but in several environments, the technology failed. Fires detected from space are already too large to make accurate assessments for control. Cell phones in wilderness areas still suffer from lack of signal. Today, some fire lookout towers remain in service, because having human eyes being able to detect smoke and call in the fire report allows fire management officials to decide early how

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1408-462: The states of Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The smoke from this fire drifted across the entire country to Washington D.C. — both physically and politically — and it challenged the five-year-old Forest Service to address new policies regarding fire suppression, and the fire did much to create the modern system of fire rules, organizations, and policies. One of the rules as a result of the 1910 fire stated "all fires must be extinguished by 10 a.m.

1452-527: The surrounding property, which includes a perimeter fence. It is approximately 1 mi (1.6 km) down the street from the Pagoda , a notable nearby landmark. The site of the tower is the location of a former tower that had been built by the Mount Penn Gravity Railroad Company in 1889. The company operated a scenic railway tour along the mountain ridge and the tower had been constructed as

1496-461: The tower includes a 168-step steel stairway leading to the top, which consists of a glass-walled observation room equipped with 16 spotlights. This glass wall is surrounded by an exterior iron observation deck and is capped by a round copper dome. Decorative elements inside the tower include stained-glass windows and a Moravian tile decoration of the Penn family crest . The exterior of the tower includes

1540-468: The tower is moisture, as the tower is unheated and moisture accumulation in the tower poses a threat to the metal stairs. In 2020, the city of Reading closed the tower to the general public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, the metal fence surrounding the property was damaged by vandals who drove through the fence. Fire lookout tower A typical fire lookout tower consists of a small room, known as

1584-464: The tower was listed on the National Historic Lookout Register . In 2000, Pagoda-Skyline began to raise funds to restore the tower, and later that year, the stairs were replaced. Much of the masonry work for the restoration was performed by the Eshbach Brothers, while Bachman Iron Works, who had worked on the tower during its original construction, again did the iron working. On October 28, 2004, on

1628-542: The tower's 65th anniversary, the building was reopened to the public on a limited basis. Since then, Pagoda-Skyline has partnered with many local groups, such as the Baird Ornithological Club and the DCNR, to hold events at the tower. It is also a popular site for geocaching . In 2014, a new fence was added around the tower. In 2019, Berks Community Television reported that the main issue facing continued preservation to

1672-535: The tower's erection was quarried from the mountain. The highest paid workers on the project, consisting of engineers and iron workers, received an hourly rate of $ 1.37 ($ 29 in 2022). The construction of the tower came during a boom period of fire lookout tower construction in Pennsylvania, with a total of 150 such towers standing in the state by the late 1940s. Construction on the tower was completed in August 1939. Prior to

1716-518: The tower's opening, a naming contest was held which was won by Tony Pietrovito, who stated that he came up with the name after watching a play about William Penn performed by students at Reading Senior High School . The tower officially opened to the public on October 28, 1939. The tower proved to be a popular tourist destination, as within its first two months of operation, over 80,000 people visited, with contemporary claims that there had been visitors from every U.S. state. For many years after its opening,

1760-477: The valuable trees for the forestry industry. Most towers were built in the early 1920s to 1950s and were a mix of wood and steel structures. A total of 325 towers dotted the landscape of Ontario in the 1960s, and today approx. 156 towers span the province, but only a handful of towers remained in use after the 1970s. They are still in use in British Columbia , Alberta , Saskatchewan , Manitoba , Ontario and

1804-474: The wind more than wooden towers. The typical cab of a steel tower can be from 10 ft × 10 ft (3.0 m × 3.0 m) to 14 ft × 14 ft (4.3 m × 4.3 m) The Aermotor Company , originally of Chicago, Illinois, was the first and lead manufacturer of steel fire towers from the 1910s to the mid-1920s. These towers have very small cabs, as the towers are based on Aermotor windmill towers . These towers are often found in

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1848-526: Was Grover Cleveland Freeman of Lower Alsace Township. He drew design inspiration for the tower by studying over half a dozen other fire lookout towers, including one from Saint Paul, Minnesota. Construction began on December 9, 1938, reutilizing the foundation for the previous tower built by the Gravity Railroad company. Ironwork was completed by the Bachman Iron Works of Reading, and all stone used in

1892-449: Was during this time that the CCC set about building fire lookout towers, and access roads to those towers. The U.S. Forest Service took great advantage of the CCC workforce and initiated a massive program of construction projects, including fire lookout towers. In California alone, some 250 lookout towers and cabs were built by CCC workers between 1933 and 1942. The heyday of fire lookout towers

1936-587: Was from 1930 through 1950. During World War II, the Aircraft Warning Service was established, operating from mid-1941 to mid-1944. Fire lookouts were assigned additional duty as Enemy Aircraft Spotters, especially on the West Coast of the United States. From the 1960s through the 1990s the towers took a back seat to new technology, aircraft, and improvements in radios. The promise of space satellite fire detection and modern cell phones tried to compete with

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