WEST VIRGINIA LOOKOUTS
TAMS MOUNTAIN
Raleigh County
West Virginia Division of Forestry
West Virginia Division of Forestry
February 16, 1935: "Erecting a steel fire tower 80 feet in height from ground to cabin floor in the short period of 10 days is the feat performed by enrollees of Camp Wyoming, CCC Company 1538 at Pineville, under the supervision of Foreman K. H. Nestor. Twelve men made up the detail. The tower is located on top of Tams Mountain, Raleigh county, 10 miles from Beckley.
This feat is the more noteworthy when it is considered that it was performed under miserable weather conditions during the last part of January and the first part of running from 10 to 20 degrees above zero all the time. With the winds howling a regular gale through the steel skeleton of the tower atop the mountain, members of the crew found it necessary to make frequent trips to the ground to thaw out their hands.
Another point to be taken into consideration in compiling this record is the fact that the men had to be transported in trucks 32 miles each way, a total of 64 miles per day. Most of the time these trips were made over wet, icy roads that necessitated low speed and extreme care on the part of the truck driver.
Enrollee Joseph McKenna did a splendid job of blue print reading on this job, and it was due in large part to his accuracy that the members of the crew were able to assemble the tower so rapidly.
This is the third tower that details under the supervision of Mr. Nestor have erected. He was in charge of the erection of towers at Pilot Knob and Berwind.
Projects of this kind are rapidly educating the general public to the value of the CCC work being carried on in West Virginia."
"The clapboards will be used in building the forester's cabin on top of Tams Mountain. This cabin is now under construction by enrollees of Camp Wyoming. It stands near the steel fire tower which has also been erected at this point by enrollees of Company 1538." (Beckley Post Herald)
This feat is the more noteworthy when it is considered that it was performed under miserable weather conditions during the last part of January and the first part of running from 10 to 20 degrees above zero all the time. With the winds howling a regular gale through the steel skeleton of the tower atop the mountain, members of the crew found it necessary to make frequent trips to the ground to thaw out their hands.
Another point to be taken into consideration in compiling this record is the fact that the men had to be transported in trucks 32 miles each way, a total of 64 miles per day. Most of the time these trips were made over wet, icy roads that necessitated low speed and extreme care on the part of the truck driver.
Enrollee Joseph McKenna did a splendid job of blue print reading on this job, and it was due in large part to his accuracy that the members of the crew were able to assemble the tower so rapidly.
This is the third tower that details under the supervision of Mr. Nestor have erected. He was in charge of the erection of towers at Pilot Knob and Berwind.
Projects of this kind are rapidly educating the general public to the value of the CCC work being carried on in West Virginia."
"The clapboards will be used in building the forester's cabin on top of Tams Mountain. This cabin is now under construction by enrollees of Camp Wyoming. It stands near the steel fire tower which has also been erected at this point by enrollees of Company 1538." (Beckley Post Herald)
February 24, 1935: "Recently when a girl of a mountain family in Wyoming county was taken seriously ill and when it was found that high waters in a creek prevented an ambulance approaching near the mountain home, the family asked a detail of CCC workers to help.
The detail, erecting a telephone line to the new fire tower on the top of Tams mountain, immediately dispatched four of the workers with stretchers to the mountain home. They carried the sick girl over a narrow mountain trail several miles to the road where she was placed aboard the ambulance.
With the job completed they merely returned to their task under the forestry foreman.
The detail is composed of members of Company 1538, Camp Wyoming. Pineville. Captain John West, Charleston, is the army officer in charge." (Charleston Gazette)
November 8, 1953: "District Forester Carl Lucas tells about the forest fire tower observer on Tams Mountain two years ago who so loved trees that he wouldn't cut down a giant hickory which was blocking his view.
The 65-year-old climbed the tree, which reached 100 feet into the sky, and clipped away branches until the hickory resembled a Lombardy popular.
Lucas says he's afraid he'll never find another observer like the man, so next time the tree obstructs the view, it will be cut down." (The Raleigh Register)