Remembering the Crane Mountain Fire Tower
Erected in March 1919, this 35-foot fire tower stood on Crane Mountain's summit until the Department of Environmental Conservation removed it in 1987, helicoptering the cab to a nearby field owned by Robert and Edith Baker.
"Fire towers are an essential element in the history of New York State, having stood for nearly a century as guardians of the vast woodlands in the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains,” writes Martin Podskoch, author of two books on the fire towers of the Adirondacks and one on the fire towers of the Catskills.
“While lightning had always been a threat to the forests, it was not until the late 19th century with the advent of the railroads serving new communities and expanding tourism that forest fires became a serious threat to life and property. Locomotives shot burning cinders and sparks starting fires that reached into the forests where loggers had left treetops and limbs, ready fuel for what became gigantic fires that destroyed thousands of acres, drove people from their homes, and darkened the skies in distant cities. In 1903 and 1908 the destruction was disastrous and the state was spurred by public pressure to create a new, more effective system to contain the rampant flames.”
"In 1909 the state began to erect primitive lookout stations with observers on duty throughout the fire season perched atop crude log towers with open platforms,” Podskoch continues. “The observers lived in tents or log cabins nearby. Over the next decade these lookout stations evolved into metal towers with enclosed cabs rising as much as 70 feet above the forest floor.”
In his extensive history of Crane Mountain and its neighbor, Huckleberry Mountain, Adirondack historian John Sasso tells us that Crane’s first tower, made of wood, was built on its summit in 1911 and its first observer was James Burch of Athol.
Dick and Perky Granger purchased the Crane Mountain fire tower cab from the Bakers in the early 1990s for $50.
In March 1919, John continues, that tower was replaced by a 35-foot steel Aermotor model LS-40 tower, hauled up on horse-drawn sleds by a crew led by District Ranger Patrick J. Cunningham, founder of the general store in North Creek that with the arrival of the first Snow Train in 1934 started evolving into what we know today as Cunningham’s Ski Barn.
In the late 1960s, the State started closing its fire towers, finding aerial surveillance to be more efficient. DEC placed Crane on its “inactive” list in 1971 but continued to maintain it. This was fortunate, John writes, because a terrible drought in October 1973. “So serious was the potential for fires due to the dried autumn leaves that DEC Region 5 decided to re-activate four of the inactive fire towers, including the one on Crane. According to a report in November 1, 1973 edition of The North Creek News-Enterprise, Crane's re-activated tower "paid quick dividends" when the observer on it reported two fires on the weekend of November 27th.
But Crane’s active status was short-lived. In December 1987, the DEC sent a work crew to Crane to dismantle the tower, and a helicopter removed the parts from the summit. The cab was helicoptered to a nearby field owned by Robert and Edith Baker.
That’s where the story of the Crane Mountain fire tower cab undoubtedly would have ended if not for Dick Granger’s persistence in acquiring it. While the Bakers declined Granger’s initial offer to buy the cab in the early 1990s, Edith agreed a few years later following Robert’s death to sell it to Granger for $50. This explains how the cab wound up in a clearing on Dick and Perky Granger’s wooded property on Clarence Russell Road, where it would sit for the next 30 years on a platform Dick built to make access through its trap door possible.
Over time, the cab’s supports rotted to the point where the cab became a hazard, a reality that gave Dick an idea. Last December, he proposed in a note to Gary and Wini that it be moved to their 100-acre property at Martin’s Tree Farm. In this new location, the public would be able to visit and enter the cab while on nature walks and at two annual events in which the Martins play an instrumental role: the Woods Walk and Artisan Market each June and the Thurman Fall Farm Tour each October.
“Wow!,” Wini immediately responded. “What an awesome offer. We've been talking about it and would love to have it here.”
And so the project was launched. Veteran barn restorer Andy LeBlanc — who had built the Martins’ big barn — started planning the operation, which would be complicated by the need to use not one but two trailers. The first had to be small and nimble enough for the Granger’s high-powered ATV to tow it out of the woods along a rough earthen path. The second had to be sufficiently road-worthy to take down Garnet Lake Road and then a short ways further on Valley Road.
It took just under six hours as Andy led a clinic in backwoods problem-solving. Whenever we confronted some unforeseen obstacle, he would pause for a moment, and then say, “OK,” and pull out exactly the right tool that was needed in that moment. The crowbars. The metal cutter. The chain saw. The jack. The air compressor.
Throughout the afternoon, the trick was to constantly raise the cabin so as to slide eight iron rollers beneath it, four to a side, continually withdrawing them from the rear and reinserting them at the front to continue the roll. The ancient Egyptians used this technique to transport great slabs of rock for the Great Pyramid. This was our small-scale Adirondack version.
Aligning the trailer, Dick Granger at the wheel.
Making the transfer.
Ready to roll.
On Garnet Lake Road
Through the woods.
Task Completed. From left to right: Bill Good, Gary Martin, Andy LeBlanc, and Wini Martin. Trudy is the Martin's black Labrador Retriever "though when Andy is here she thinks she's his," says Wini.
Andy LeBlanc's sketch of the new platform. Click to enlarge.
Next Steps
The reason for bringing the cab out of the woods now was to introduce it to the public during the Thurman Fall Farm Tour scheduled for Saturday, October 12. As you’ll see on this helpful interactive map, Martin’s Lumber will be hosting most of the same artisans we enjoyed meeting at their Woods Walk and Artisan Market in June. They’ll again offer guided nature walks, demonstrations of weaving and candle-making, and hands-on activities for kids.
After the Farm Tour, the cab will be moved close to its new home, a site that sits on a rocky outcrop that looks up at Crane Mountain.
The platform will be hemlock and white pine. “All of the logs are here on the farm and some are already at the mill, ready to be cut,” says Gary. “Andy will provide the list of pieces to be cut.”
They’ll make the cab weather-tight for the winter and begin restoring the cab and building the platform in the spring.
”As with moving the cab, figuring out how to place the cab on our new platform will be a slow process with all hands working together. lt’s going to be fun.”
The Day Ben Reynolds’ Barn Burned
The Crane Mountain fire tower looms large in Gary Martin’s family history, as he tells us in this article published in the spring issue of the newsletter of the Warrensburg/Thurman Historical Society. Reprinted with permission.
In the background of this photo of Gary Martin's great aunt Bea and his mother at age 2 is the barn that burned in 1936.
My mom who was born in 1923 appears in this photo of the barn that we lost in 1936. My mom is about two years old in this photo and is with, I think, my great aunt Bea, Gramp's sister. Note the Stoney Creek Road to the right. Sometime in the thirties, the road was widened. The house to the left of the barn is still there, my mother and her siblings were born in this house. It is now owned by my cousin Rex Reynolds. For those of you reading this, I urge you to tell your own stories and to label your family photos. There is no one left in my family who would know our stories or recognize the ones who came before. My stories will leave a record for those who come after.
Entropy and rebirth are the laws of our universe, the relentless march of Father Time across billions of years, leaving us no choice but to follow in his footsteps, adapting and overcoming as best we can. The very land we stand on today will beswept away to be replaced by something new. Everything that is commonplace in our lives that gives us a sense of security and belonging to the identity we call home will be forgotten as if it never existed. The landmarks made both by nature and by man will disappear into the black hole of time.
In the year of 1911, the state replaced the old fire tower on Crane Mountain. For the next 76 years, the new fire tower was visible against the skyline. If you could see the mountain, you could see the tower. In December of 1987, the State deemed the tower to be obsolete and it was taken down.
One hot summer day in 1936, the steam engine was making its way through Thurman, a daily occurrence several times a day. The railroad hired local men to follow the train in a hand car equipped with a water tank and hand pump. Fires were commonplace from these steam engines but on this day, the man and his hand car failed to follow the train and there was no one to put out the fire that started.
My grandfather's farm sits high above the tracks that followed along the Hudson River the banks of which were steep and covered in big pine and oaks. The fire raced up the banks fueled by dry pine duff and it was soon very large and threatened the home of my grandparents. My Grandfather and Great Grandfather along with my mother and her siblings were fighting the fire in a desperate attempt to save their home. Back in those days, there was no electric power or phones. A fire company had not been formed and it would be many years for this to occur.
It was from the Crane Mountain fire tower that observer Will Wood spotted smoke pouring from Ben Reynolds' barn and called for help. (Thanks to Gail Needham for these photos.)
My Grandmother Reynolds used a hand crank phone that was connected to Cameron's sawmill and the boarding house asking for help. Any available man rushed to help. A large barn stood a ways from where my great-grandfather was fighting the fire. He saw the sparks fly into the hay mow, filled with about sixty tons of hay. He rushed to the barn and getting inside saw old Ted their workhorse was down on his belly pulling for all he was worth as the fire was coming down into his manger. Stepping in beside old Ted, my Grandfather cut the rope, both of them escaped the inferno unhurt.
The house across the road from the barn had a cedar shingle roof so there were men up on the roof pouring water from buckets to keep the house from burning up. Water was lugged from a well several hundred feet away, hand over hand in buckets. Meanwhile ten miles away Will Wood was in the fire tower on Crane Mountain when he saw smoke. He called it into Warrensburg that Ben Reynold's farm was burning up and more help was sent. Being summer the livestock was turned out, but the barn was a complete loss.
The financial blow to the Reynolds family caused a big hardship. The stories of that day were told and retold. A new barn was built and slowly they recovered. Neighbors found a place to winter the stock. The railroad showed up shortly after and wanted a complete list of the contents of the barn to which they paid Gramp pennies on the dollar for his loss.
One has to wonder how many fires were spotted from the lofty perch on Crane Mountain during the fire season by the men who spent a lot of time keeping watch, who twice a day every day climbed the mountain up and back standing guard.
If only the old tower could talk. In 1987 the cab was dumped into a field where it lay for many years slowly being reclaimed into the earth. There it was rediscovered and saved being set up on a small tower made of pine logs. The roof and broken windows were repaired but over the years the platform slowly rotted away until again the cab was threatened.
Once again though, this old fire tower cab has found a new lease on life and will be set up to again to welcome visitors who for a few brief moments can look out its window and wonder about the men who watched over us down through the years.
Saving our history is paramount to the beliefs of the Martins for it tells us who we are and where we belong. The Thurman of 1936 no longer exists. Families who made this home now lie at rest, the stories told to us as kids, and the things that were used to earn a living need sharing. For one day, like this old fire tower, we ourselves will be part of the fabric woven into a time that will no longer exist.
