Last surviving fire tower in Nevada gets spot in history books

Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2001 | 6:58 a.m.

The 68-year-old Zephyr Cove tower, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, recently was listed in the National Trust for Historic Preservation's registry.

Fire prevention and detection became a priority around Lake Tahoe in the early 20th century, as the area developed into a vacation-resort hotspot. Lookout towers were built on peaks and mountains, with an observation radius of about 30 miles.

The Forest Service manned the tower until 1954, when the Nevada Division of Forestry took it over and staffed it into the 1970s.

The first Nevada Division of Forestry employees were stationed at the lookout in 1955-56 and 1958.

Idaho school teachers Leonard and Margaret Hoff came to Tahoe for summers. The tower they staffed was furnished with a bed, table, refrigerator, stove and sink upstairs. Downstairs, there was a water heater, bunk beds, bathroom and shower.

The square tower stands 29 feet high and has a roof shaped like a pyramid. Banks of windows extend all the way around the top floor, which served as the observation room. An exterior wooden catwalk with a railing provided more vantage points for spotting fires.

But with the advent of fire air patrols, civilian fire detectors, increased operational costs, improved roads and fire trucks, firefighters manning lookouts turned into a thing of the past.

In 1997, the 14-by-14-foot lookout tower became a site for Pacific Bell Wireless antennas to provide radio signals around the Lake Tahoe Basin.

The telecommunications company had been looking for a site in an existing structure to help accommodate the explosive demand in wireless technology without disrupting the natural character of the Lake Tahoe environment.

"When you look at it, you wouldn't know microwave dishes are in it," said John Maher, the heritage resource manager for the Forest Service's Lake Tahoe Management Unit.

PacBell pays the Forest Service more than $2,600 a year to lease the structure, which sits on a 1.1-acre parcel owned by Zephyr Cove Properties. The Forest Service inspects the building and still uses the building with the Tahoe Douglas Fire District three or four times a year.

The unconventional usage has turned out to be a win-win situation.

"It's good for (the Forest Service) because PacBell maintains the building," Maher said.

The Forest Service has concentrated efforts on gaining additional revenue over the past five years to help pay for its operations. Forest Service management officials say the transformation is a good opportunity because the tower needed repairs.

PacBell Wireless paid $20,000 to upgrade the structure.

The company got permits and approvals from the Lake Tahoe Management Unit, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and Douglas County's building and planning departments.

The contractor installed three antennas, mounted on pipes, each attached to a 1-square-foot base, bolted to the floor. The microwave dishes, mounted in the same way, take up about 6 square feet of floor space each.

A chain with warning signs ropes off the dishes and antennas from the rest of the room, so visitors won't risk exposure to unsafe levels of radio waves.