SQUAW MOUNTAIN
Maine - Piscataquis County - Maine Forestry District
August 25, 1905: "In the Moosehead region the watchman on Squaw Mountain lookout station reports a big fire about 50 miles distant on the waters of the north branch of the Penobscot. There is another quite sizable blaze on Russel stream which appears now to be well under control. Still another fire is... .., not withstanding the large number of men who are fighting with all the most approved methods, is burning furiously. The man at the lookout station likewise reports another fire on the so-called 10,000 acre tract." (Daily Kennebec Journal)
September 4, 1905: "...Squaw mountain, which has yielded some of the best pine and spruce in its day, is located at the foot of Moosehead lake and that its top rises nearly four thousand feet above the sea level. ... You will remember that the top of old Squaw is a bare rock without vegetation. On that rock has been erected a small frame structure for the observer. He takes his observations from the top of the house. He is provided with the latest thing in field glasses, charts and range finders. This observatory is under the personal charge of Mr. Shaw who is chief warden for Piscataquis county but overlooks a large portion of Somerset county." (Daily Kennebec Journal)
December 1905: "Some of the wild land owners who have heartily co-operated with the State Forestry Department have been instrumental this year in establishing three lookout telephone stations--one on the summit of Squaw Mountain, one on Mount Attean and one on Bigelow Mountain. These stations, with the aid of powerful glasses, have covered a wide range of vision, and the watchmen have thus been enabled to overlook a vast stretch of territory. There is little doubt that the station on Squaw Mountain has been the means of saving tens of thousands of acres of woodland in the region around Moosehead Lake." (Forest Leaves)
April 5, 1907: "Recently the telephone has been called into use to aid the fire wardens in discovering and distinguishing fires in the northern forests, A station has been established on the summit of Squaw mountain about six miles west of Greenville.
A man stationed at this point can see the country for miles around, and with the aid of powerful field glasses and range finders can discover and locate a fire anywhere within a radius of 60 miles." (The Oregon Daily Journal)
August 1907: "The station at Squaw Mountain is a log cabin structure with flat roof, located at the southern end of Moosehead Lake, at an elevation of over 4,000 feet above sea level. The station commands a clean sweep of the entire Moosehead Lake region east and west, and to the southwest cab control the whole forest in the East Branch section. The watchman makes observations from the roof every hour of the day, and from June 10th 1905, to September 12, 1905, discovered between 30 and 40 fires." (Forest Leaves)
1912: "On Squaw Mountain trails and telephone lines have been kept in good condition. For permanent improvements another season would suggest the building of a watchman's camp on Squaw Mountain about two and one-half miles from the summit where there is a good spring of water situated near the trail leading to the station." (1912 Forest Commissioner's Report)
1914: "At the Squaw Mt. Station a new cabin has been built near the trail, 10 minutes walk from the summit, commodious enough for the watchman's use in storing the season's supplies and tools, and a telephone line from Moosehead State Hatchery road to the watchman's cabin on the summit of the mountain repaired and reconstructed, and two new telephone boxes installed, one at the watchman's cabin on the summit of the mountain and the other in his home cabin along the trail, equipped with modern lightning protection." (1914 Forest Commissioner's Report)
1919: A 12-foot steel tower was erected. (1919 Annual Report of the Forest Commissioner)
1920: Inventory shows a 12-foot steel tower.
October 11, 2011: The Maine Forest Service airlifted the lookout tower from the top of the mountain and delivered it to the Natural Resources Education Center south of Greenville on Route 15. The lookout will be reconstructed to meet safety standards and then opened to the public. (from a story in the Bangor Daily News)