Missouri Fire Lookout Towers

[talkpair]

A couple pictures caught my eye on page 18 of this month's Rural Missouri. This is the tabloid that the electric co-op sends out monthly to it's members.

Rural Missouri Magazine - Digital Edition

It brought back some memories of vacations with family in the Ozarks and climbing some of these towers with the handheld scanner back in the late 70's early 80's.

Surely I can't be the only one that did this.

 

[kruser]

Yep, that brings back a bunch of great memories.

I also climbed my share of old fire towers up until maybe the mid 80s.
My only day off work back in that timeframe was on Mondays when all my buddies worked. I'd et out with my dog and journey all over the state looking for interesting areas but mostly radio towers.
I found that many fire towers were located at high elevations where there were also radio towers.

Using scanners and a frequency counter, I'd figure our many of the users with transmitters at those sites.

I mainly ran the I-44 corridor from St Louis down to Lebanon and then south from I-44 to the states souther border during the Monday excursions.
Gas was halfway cheap still and I had nothing else better to do.

One of my favorites was the fire tower at Taum Sauk mountain. There were also a couple LMR towers at the Taum Sauk location which is the highest point in the state. There is an remote FAA ARTCC station visible on the ground from the fire tower at Taum Sauk as well.

I also recall a fire tower somewhere around Jonesburg, MO and you could see the Callaway nucler plants cooling towers from that tower way off in the distance.

Thanks for sharing the article!
Now I remember how much I enjoyed those simpler days and of course miss them to this day.

 

[Papagei]

The one I remember the most was south of Rolla, on the east side of US-63. Looking at an old road map, it was about 9 miles south of Rolla, about halfway between Vida and Yancy Mills. An old USGS map says this might have been the "Pilot Knob" tower.

By the time I was there in 1991-1992, I think I remember at least turning in to the driveway for it, but I think a road gate stopped me. I don't remember if I walked up to the base or not; I think some of them had fences and locked gates by that time. I did hear stories of people who got in and climbed it. Looking at current satellite and street views, I'm not sure it's there anymore, but there does seem to be some kind of radio tower on the site.

The only scanner I owned at the time was a 20-channel desktop model, and I don't think I took it with me to Rolla. I would have had to bring a battery and inverter with me if I wanted to climb the tower with it.

A tip for finding ones you remember: at least through the late 1980s, the towers were marked on the MoDOT state highway map. MoDOT has scans of their paper maps all the way back to 1918 at Missouri Highway Map Archive 1918 - 2019 | Missouri Department of Transportation . They were also on USGS topo maps, and USGS has those online too, but I don't have the link handy.

 

[talkpair]

The towers I climbed had no fences, barricades or warning signs around them at that time, however the cabins at the top were locked.

Looking at the 1954 Modot map, I see the tower south of Hollister on Hwy 86. The symbol is an encircled brown (filled) triangle.

https://www.modot.org/sites/default/files/documents/1954_002_reduced%5B1%5D.pdf

Not sure if that tower is still there or not. For all I know, highway 86 may not even be in the same place it was in 1954.

The other tower I remember was north of Rolla along US 63 somewhere. This was the last tower I went up somewhere in the 1995-2000 time frame.

Luckily back the the late 70's early 80's rural public safety agencies were still using 155.730 as their primary channel, so my 4 channel crystal handheld scanner was good for road trips.

I remember having a Regency M400 as my first synthesized mobile back then, but I don't recall anyone making a synthesized portable when the mobile radios came out. It's as if the portable radios were slow to catch up.

 

[Papagei]

Looking at the 1954 Modot map, I see the tower south of Hollister on Hwy 86. The symbol is an encircled brown (filled) triangle. [...]Not sure if that tower is still there or not.

I have a paper copy of the '85-'86 MoDOT map and there is still a tower in that area, but in a slightly different spot. The '54 map shows it being south of MO-86 and west of US 63, near Oasis, MO. The '85 map shows a tower on the east side of US 63 and a little further north.

The other tower I remember was north of Rolla along US 63 somewhere. This was the last tower I went up somewhere in the 1995-2000 time frame.

There are a couple on the '85 map that might fit that description. One is on the south side of US 63, about 4 miles north of Vichy, or about 15 miles north of Rolla. The other is on the west side of US 63, about 3 miles south of Freeburg, or about 29 miles north of Rolla.

It's as if the portable radios were slow to catch up.

I have worked on a desktop early-80s synthesized Bearcat scanner, and its EEPROM required several "odd" positive and negative DC voltages to work. The scanner could run from either 120 V AC or 12 V DC, so I think the internal power supply made about 12 V DC first, and then had another little oscillator, coil, and rectifier to make the negative voltages. It could be that the manufacturers didn't want to find room for the "extra" power-supply circuitry in a portable at that time; I'm pretty sure that as EEPROMs developed, they became able to use the same single +5 V supply as everything else, which would make them easier to integrate into a portable.

 

[talkpair]

I found this map useful:

Missouri Fire Towers - Active Map - Google My Maps

Bob Frakes has written a book called, "Remembering Missouri’s Lookout Towers – A Place Above the Trees." It is available at https://wordsmatterpublishing.com, under "Titles." Click on a tower marker to see more information, including historical facts, photos, PID markers, and coordinates...

www.google.com

The last tower I went up was the one south of Freeburg.

The tower near Vichy was in view from US 63, but I had no idea how to get there.

I have doubts about the location of the Hollister tower on that map though.

 

[zerg901]

you can go to Google Maps - center the map in the area of interest - and then search for "lookout tower" or "tower" - many of the forest fire towers do show up in those Google Map searches - many AM, FM, and TV tower sites also show up

 

[kruser]

I found this map useful:

Missouri Fire Towers - Active Map - Google My Maps

Bob Frakes has written a book called, "Remembering Missouri’s Lookout Towers – A Place Above the Trees." It is available at https://wordsmatterpublishing.com, under "Titles." Click on a tower marker to see more information, including historical facts, photos, PID markers, and coordinates...

www.google.com

The last tower I went up was the one south of Freeburg.

The tower near Vichy was in view from US 63, but I had no idea how to get there.

I have doubts about the location of the Hollister tower on that map though.

Cool map!

Back in the day, I guess it was the late 70s, I used old Electra models like the BC250 and BC220. I had batteries I'd take with me and a magnetic based antenna. That was my "portable" setup but it was a bit heavy when climbing a fire tower!

Sometime back then, Electra released the Bearcat 100, a 16 channel programmable handheld. The audio was very weak so you had to put it by your ear if there was any background noise. For some reason, I think that old portable may have been missing one of the bands like maybe low band. I can't really remember. I still have one of those old portables around here.

The main thing I did when visiting fire towers around the state was to document any frequencies found on radio towers at or near the fire tower sites. When I'd get home, I'd plug the frequencies into the scanners and see if I could copy any of the distant signals. I did copy some but only when conditions were right and the VHF band was open.
I had copies of the FCC database on several floppy disks. That came from Grove and was pretty good at helping ID some of the signals I'd find.
Between the FCC DB disks and the old Police Call books when they started publishing them, you had a pretty good chance at figuring things out.
I sure miss those old simple days.

 

[crayon]

I sure miss those old simple days.

When I looked at the picture in the Rural Missouri article, I just groaned. I like simple things too but I do not miss growing up in the armpit of Missouri. Most everyone is dirt poor because it is an economically depressed area with a general bassackwards hick mentality. Addmittely an over-broad generalization but I could not wait to leave. When we go to visit family my kids usually say something to the effect of how they wished we lived in Missouri. I am like no, you don't.



That said, I guess I do miss listening to EMD's at night thumping on the Cuba Sub only because it reminded me of riding in the cab of tunnel motors with my dad as he climbed the big 10's.

 

[talkpair]

When I first saw the low band folded dipole on the side of the Eminence tower, my first thought was that it might be a relic from back when all the highway patrol's low band repeaters were all on 154.695 or 154.920.
After checking an old Police Call from 1976, it doesn't appear that they had a repeater there.

My guess is that it's probably an antenna the power co-op has or had at that site.

RR Database Home

The most complete database of radio communications data

www.radioreference.com

 

[DeoVindice]

When I looked at the picture in the Rural Missouri article, I just groaned. I like simple things too but I do not miss growing up in the armpit of Missouri. Most everyone is dirt poor because it is an economically depressed area with a general bassackwards hick mentality. Addmittely an over-broad generalization but I could not wait to leave. When we go to visit family my kids usually say something to the effect of how they wished we lived in Missouri. I am like no, you don't.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I have more friends in southern Missouri than anywhere else in the world, and would move back in a heartbeat if I could find a decent job there.

 

[nd5y]

When I first saw the low band folded dipole on the side of the Eminence tower, my first thought was that it might be a relic from back when all the highway patrol's low band repeaters were all on 154.695 or 154.920.
After checking an old Police Call from 1976, it doesn't appear that they had a repeater there.

There is a low band base licesed at Eminence. I don't know when it was added or if it is still in service. The location on Googe earth looks like a fire tower.

FCC Callsign KAA522 (MISSOURI, STATE OF)

FCC Callsign KAA522 (MISSOURI, STATE OF)

www.radioreference.com

 

[talkpair]

That is probably the correct site, because the tower I posted doesn't show the river in the background.

It's probably still used for coverage whenever they use lowband.

 

[JoshuaHufford]

When I looked at the picture in the Rural Missouri article, I just groaned. I like simple things too but I do not miss growing up in the armpit of Missouri. Most everyone is dirt poor because it is an economically depressed area with a general bassackwards hick mentality. Addmittely an over-broad generalization but I could not wait to leave. When we go to visit family my kids usually say something to the effect of how they wished we lived in Missouri. I am like no, you don't.



That said, I guess I do miss listening to EMD's at night thumping on the Cuba Sub only because it reminded me of riding in the cab of tun
nel motors with my dad as he climbed the big 10's.

Those of us who live here will likely disagree, no state is perfect. If that is how you view us, glad your not here.

 

[crayon]

Those of us who live here will likely disagree, no state is perfect. If that is how you view us, glad your not here.

IKR. I totally feel the same way. I am glad I dont have to pay to have my car inspected. I am glad I dont have to pay personal property tax. I am glad I dont live in a state that has the lowest cigarette tax. I am glad I dont live in the meth capital of the lower 48:

Meth again a dangerous scourge in Missouri

As the opioid crisis rages across the nation, garnering daily national headlines, a resurgence in methamphetamine addiction is playing out in the background, endangering many Missourians and increasing the burden

www.stltoday.com

Now if my family would just leave my life would be perfect.

lol.



BTW .. do you just love how they advertise "Come visit our historical prison" in Jeff City? Every time I see that billboard I think .. a prison .. so appropriate.

Anyway nuff with the ribbing ..