NASSAWANGO
Maryland - Worcester County
October 23, 1928: "Construction of the new $2,400 fire lookout tower for Worcester and Wicomico counties on the woodland of the Corddry Company, of Snow Hill, south of Nassawango Creek, will be begun next week according to Forest Warden Noble T. Morgan, of this city.
The tower will be 120 feet high, and will be completed by the last of November, it is estimated. Owners of approximately 25,000 acres of forest land, in the two counties, have organized the Nassawango Forestry Association, and will contribute a tax of four cents per acre toward meeting the expense of the project. The Boards of Commissioners of the two counties and the State will bear the remainder of the expense.
The fire tower will be the first of its kind on the Eastern Shore. Besides protecting a large area of forest in Worcester and Wicomico counties, a small portion of Somerset County will also be under supervision. Two lookouts are to be employed at the tower." (The Evening Journal)
The tower will be 120 feet high, and will be completed by the last of November, it is estimated. Owners of approximately 25,000 acres of forest land, in the two counties, have organized the Nassawango Forestry Association, and will contribute a tax of four cents per acre toward meeting the expense of the project. The Boards of Commissioners of the two counties and the State will bear the remainder of the expense.
The fire tower will be the first of its kind on the Eastern Shore. Besides protecting a large area of forest in Worcester and Wicomico counties, a small portion of Somerset County will also be under supervision. Two lookouts are to be employed at the tower." (The Evening Journal)
1928: "The Nassawango Forestry Association was organized through the agency of the District Forester on the Eastern Shore during 1927 and 1928. This Association, composed of the principal woodland owners of Worcester and Wicomico Counties, constructed the Nassawango forest fire lookout tower in this area during the fall of 1928. The services of the lookout tower have proved invaluable in the one season during which it has been in operation." (State Department of Forestry Report for 1929)
March 1929: "Two steel observation towers were erected in Maryland in 1928, one 120 feet high at Millville, Worcester County." (Forest Worker)
October 4, 1929: "Only one forest fire has been reported by Deputy Warden Samuel Long, watchman at the Worcester county forest fire tower, near Snow Hill, since its erection last winter, it was learned yesterday from the district forester. The Worcester county fire tower, 120 feet high, overlooks 99,280 acres of woodland in Wicomico, Somerset and Worcester counties." (The Evening Journal)
1929: "Several important developments in the fire detection plan of the State were made in 1929. The most noteworthy, perhaps, was the erection, early in that year, of the Nassawango Forest Fire Tower in Worcester County in the loblolly pine section of the Eastern Shore. This tower is 120 feet in height, the highest tower built for fire detection purposes in the United States, so far as known. The terrain overlooked by the tower is exceptionally flat and the extra height was needed to reach over the tree tops and to obtain best vision. Aid in building the tower was rendered by the timberland owners who formed the Nassawango Forestry Association, assessing each member a small sum for each acre of woodland owned. The County Commissioners of both counties also contributed to the erection of this tower." (State Department of Forestry Report for 1929)
March 12, 1930: "E.R. Ennis, Parsonsburg, was interrupted this week while burning a small heap of rubbish behind his store. The interruption was in the nature of a phone call, the caller asking what the smoke was about. It had been seen from the fire tower on the Snow Hill road twelve miles away by Sam Long, watcher in the tower.
Visibility from the tower is said to be good for ten miles and fair for fifteen.
About 300,000 acres, 200,000 of them woodlands can be seen from the tower. Twelve sawmills can be seen from the tower." (The Salisbury Times)
December 11, 1930: "... The other was the erection of a lofty tower at Nassawango, near here, from which thousands of acres of woodland may be seen by the towerman in clear weather.
The tower, one of the tallest in the state, was constructed with $300 provided by the state and $360 raised in Worcester county by former Warden Avery Perdue." (Cumberland Evening Times)
March 16, 1939: "The only newly appointed towerman on the Shore is Orville Timmons at the Nassawango tower." (The Daily Times)
February 9, 1940: "Mrs. Margie Smullin Dennis, 26 year old resident of Atkinson District, has the distinction of being the only woman Fire Tower Warden on the Eastern Shore. Mrs. Dennis is in charge of the Nassawango Forest Fire Tower located on the Snow Hill - Salisbury highway, six miles from Snow Hill." (Worcester Democrat and the Ledger-Enterprise)