BLACKHALL MOUNTAIN
Carbon County - Medicine Bow National Forest
August 26, 1943: "Amos Ebersole, lookout at Hahns Peak, is to be transferred to the Black Hills lookout." (Black Hall) (Steamboat Pilot)
September 2, 1943: "Ranger Williams from the Encampment area came in Monday to transfer Amos Ebersole to his new post at Black Hall lookout." (was stationed on Hahns Peak) (Steamboat Pilot)
September 4, 1943: "Maybe the lights of Greeley are not as bright as Broadway, but they looked pretty bright to Clay R. Apple, Jr., Greeley high school lad who has just returned after 68 days alone -- very much alone -- atop a 10,850-foot mountain top in the Medicine Bow National forest in Wyoming where he had a job during the summer as a forest guard or fire-watcher.
Clay, a sophomore last year at Greeley high school, had just turned 16 years old, when he mounted to his lookout station atop Blackhall mountain, south of Encampment, Wyo., last June 21. Sixteen years is the minimum age at which the U.S. Forest service employs watchers and the Greeley lad was the youngest fire guard in the Medicine Bow forest this summer.
Until Sept. 1 he roosted alone atop the peak, watching for the tell-tale smoke that might herald a serious fire. During the summer he was credited with three fire discoveries, but except for one fire nearly 25 miles away beyond a high ridge and much closer to another lookout station, none of the fires was extensive.
Each 30 minutes from dawn to dusk he made a survey of the thousands of acres of Douglas fir, Engleman spruce and Lodgepole pine spread beneath him and extending to the peak-ringed horizon. Five times a day he made recordings of meteorological readings and computed fire danger point which includes the factors of temperature, wind velocity, humidity, fuel moisture and cumulative rain lack conditions.
Only twice during the summer was he visited by forest service rangers who brought him food supplies. Their second visit came only a week before he left the peak. Snow was so deep that when he went up to his lookout, pack horses were used for the last seven or eight miles. Later in the season trucks could come close to his lookout with supplies.
The lad did his own cooking, helped by things he had learned while earning a Boy Scout merit badge for cooking. "Mother also gave me some recipes including one for biscuits. I had biscuits three meals a day," he said.
"Once they brought me a ham, but worms got into it and I was out of meat for a while until some Mexican sheepherders came to my neighborhood. They gave me a leg of lamb and it tasted good. They visited me every day for 10 days while they were near."
He cut his own firewood and sawed it up to keep his lookout comfortable. The nights were chilly. Last Monday night the mercury went into the low 20 degrees, he said. "I had to thaw out my water bag behind the stove," he said. "I slept under 13 blankets that night; most of the summer I got under only seven or eight. Snow fell Sunday forenoon up there."
He carried his water from a spring down the mountain, a three-quarters of a mile round trip. "I had to hustle on my water trips to be back in half an hour to make my half-hour surveys," Clay said.
For days before Clay left he had tinkered and repaired a radio which he had counted upon for companionship atop the mountain. But only four days after he arrived, a bolt of lightning knocked out the radio and it was silent the rest of the summer.
The simple matter of getting his hair cut bobbed up as a problem--but it didn't matter a whole lot. He had not taken a mirror with him, expecting to find one there. But there was none. So he had to go outside when the light was right and use the window panes of his 14 by 14 foot home and cut his own hair with scissors as best he could. (The Greeley Daily Tribune)
October 7, 1943: "Amos Ebersole who has manned the Black Hall lookout is again back on Hahns peak lookout." (Steamboat Pilot)
July 20, 1955: "Nineteen-year old girl fire watcher from Harvey (Illinois) is safe after spending more than a week trapped in a mountain-top cabin by a blazing forest fire in the Medicine Bow forest near Saratoga, Wyo.
Miss Virginia McIntyre, Harvey, and her cousin, David Howarth, 12, son of Springfield's major, Nelson Howarth, are spending the Summer atop Blackhall mountain.
Miss McIntyre is serving her second Summer as a U.S. fire watcher. She is a senior in the Forestry department at Iowa State college at Ames, Iowa.
The girl's parent, Mr. and Mrs. Harold McIntyre, received a letter from her Sunday. She described in detail the horror of the timber-consuming flames that she could see for miles around her.
She reported that she and David are safe and well, despite the fact that they were without communication after their telephone line gave way to the flames." (Suburbanite Economist - Chicago)