Stories from atop the old fire tower

By Robert Sorrell

Stoney Creek resident Gale Colbaugh was only a few years old when he saw the old wooden fire tower atop Holston Mountain catch ablaze.

His father, Luther Colbaugh, was on the tower at the time. Colbaugh said he lived in Liberty Hollow and could see the tower from his front yard. When everything on the tower was OK, his father would light an old Alladin oil lamp. The light of the lamp could be seen from the Liberty Hollow home.

“If it was lit, we knew he was OK,” Gale Colbaugh said.

The wooden tower caught fire on Oct. 9, 1943, a day when his father Luther was working. Luther’s brother Herbert was also on the tower.

“It was terrifying knowing he was on the tower,” he said.

Gale Colbaugh could see flames coming from the tower and his family feared that Luther was still on the tower. Fortunately, both individuals made it to safety, without any injuries, but the tower was a total loss.

Following the fire, the National Forest Service conducted a full inquiry into the cause. According to the inquiry, the fire was caused by either a spark from the stove pipe or lightning. Soon after, the Forest Service purchased a replacement 100-foot tower from Mississippi and placed it on top of the Holston High Knob.

Luther Colbaugh became the first person to man the new steel tower, which was about three times the size of the wooden tower. He would work on the tower during the dry season and watch for smoke over the mountains. There were a handful of towers at the time, generally one on every high mountain in the region, including White Rock, Pinnacle Mountain and Doe Mountain. There were towers maintained by the federal government and the state of Tennessee.

Holston High Knob was a federal tower and due to its height, it became a dispatch point for fire planning. The towers were a critical part of the Forest Service, requiring individuals to man the towers during the dry season.

Gale Colbaugh said that when he was young, he would ride the school bus to the head of Rome Hollow on Friday nights to visit his father. He would follow the telephone lines to reach the tower from Rome Hollow. He would then stay Friday and Saturday night and return home Sunday.

The father and son duo would work on the tower, maintain the property, cook meals and spend quality time together on top of the mountain.

And he has saved that old oil lamp that his father lit on the tower. He also has several other items his father used to mark timber and map new roads.

In 1955, Luther Colbaugh was transferred to Greeneville, where he was over fire control for Greene and Cocke counties. “He was transferred there to help curb forestry fires and improve on community relations,” Gale Colbaugh said.

He later became regional manager for road maintenance, in which he was responsible for building new roads throughout the Cherokee National Forest. After 38 years of service, Luther Colbaugh retired due to medical conditions. “He was truly dedicated to his work and it was the delight of his life,” Gale Colbaugh said.

There have only been a handful of individuals to work atop the tower on Holston Mountain. Another individual, Rondall Ellis, manned the tower in the 1960s and 1970s. Ironically, Ellis and Gale Colbaugh went to school together and are good friends.

“I went to work for the forest service in 1962,” Ellis said.

He worked on the tower for seven fire seasons. “Back then there were towers scattered all over,” Ellis said. “There was one in Shady Valley, one on White Rock, near Roan Mountain, Unicoi.”

Ellis explained, “At that time, if one (person) saw smoke and somebody else saw smoke, they then took a cross bearing and that’s where your smoke was. The tower acted like a transit.”

A fire finder was located in the center of the tower. The unique piece of equipment was used to pinpoint exactly where a fire was coming from. At least two fire towers would usually be used to locate fires.

“Then they went to a fire dispatcher and he plotted all of the bearings and this and that,” Ellis said. “At one time, Holston was the dispatching tower. All of the other towers would call in their bearings to Holston and he would plot out where the fire was and call in the crews.”

Individuals would man the tower in the spring and fall dry seasons. “It wasn’t a place that you stayed constantly,” he said. “You might have had rain for a few days and you wouldn’t have to stay. You could ride back home.”

On one occasion, Ellis said he was on the tower for a straight 21 days. “We had a bad dry season,” he said.

The 100-foot tower is topped by a small building, known as the cab. The cab features a fire finder in the center. The cab also had a small apartment-type stove, a refrigerator and a fold up bed.

“It depended on how dry it was if you stayed at night,” Ellis said. “You were assigned to that tower, it was yours. If there was an emergency or something, they would send up someone to relieve you. Other than that, it was yours to take care of. It was your responsibility if you stayed at night. Usually we would stay until after dark.”

The individuals who manned the towers had other jobs with the Forest Service as well. Ellis said that during the summer months, he worked in the recreation areas and conducted timber marking. But when it came to fire season, the towers became the top priority.

From atop the tower, Ellis said on a nice clear day he could see Cumberland Gap at the Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia border. He could also see Beech Mountain in North Carolina. The tower on Holston Mountain is not the typical height for a tower in the Appalachian Mountains. In fact, most range between 30 and 40 feet.

Ellis said he believed the goal of the 100-foot tower was the possibility to see all the way to Shady Valley in Johnson County. But Ellis said he could not see Shady Valley when he was on the tower. However he could see Bristol, Elizabethton and Johnson City from the tower.

Ellis said he retired from the Forest Service in 1994, but he returned to the tower last year for a visit. “I went because I knew they had torn off the cab and I wanted to see it,” he said.

When he worked on the tower, there was no fence. When he we returned last year, a fence was constructed to fend off trespassers and vandals, which have damaged the structure.

“I would like to see some interest put into it to make it an observation platform,” Ellis said. “They just need to do some safety things to it. It used to be a really popular place. There were a lot of people that came up on the weekends.”

Ellis said he believed the last person to work on the tower was Buddy Phillips. “There are not many of us left,” he said.

The Forest Service stopped using the tower in 1991, when they began relying on airplanes to watch for fires. There are also several preventative measures the Forest Service takes to fight fires, decreasing the need of the towers.