Almost in the Clouds! The Story of the Miskimon Fire Tower, Miskimon, VA

This is the history of the Miskimon Fire Tower, known variously as the Lancaster-Northumberland Fire Lookout Tower or the Northumberland-Lancaster Fire Lookout Tower on the Northern Neck of Virginia. It was built in 1938 and served the local communities for around 50 years. The story is not only about this skeleton of steel and wood but of the women and men and their experiences as fire lookouts or fire spotters in this tower of around 100 feet. The tower and its spotters are important reflections of a part of American history. This Tower, like the many other towers throughout the United States, helped in the protection of a most valuable commodity: our forests. Chapter One of this book gives a brief summary of firefighting and fire insurance. After all the Tower was also a form of insurance, since the spotting of a fire when it was initially easier to contain might insure against it becoming a spreading, destructive conflagration. Because the function of any fire tower is to allow the spotting of smoke and flame, thereby to ultimately save forests and lives, whether human or animal, Chapter Two presents how the need for such towers developed in the United States as well as in Virginia in the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th century. Once the advantages of fire towers were clearly recognized by politicians and the general public, their construction reached its heyday. The remaining Chapters are devoted almost entirely to the Miskimon Tower: its construction; its uses; the other towers with which it might have had radio contact in the surrounding counties; and the experiences of those working and living near the Tower. There are certainly places in these chapters where experiences, comparisons and descriptions from other towers are included. In addition, there are pictures, both old and recent, that document the building, use and unfortunately the decay of some of these towers.