MAGEE PEAK
Shasta County - Lassen National Forest
September 28, 1915: "A forest service telephone line has been completed to the top of Magee Peak where a lookout will be established next season. Magee Peak is especially well located to cover the north-western portion of the Lassen National Forest. It's establishment will enable the Forest Service to do away with the Bunchgrass lookout and at the same time to cover more country. When the lookout is established on Magee Peak there will be nine lookouts on the Forest -- namely Bull Hill, Campbell Hill (Cohasset Ridge), Colby Mt., Brokeoff Mt., Turner Mt., Pegleg Mt., Prospect Peak, Harvey Mt. and Magee Peak." (Red Bluff Daily News)
July 6, 1917: "J.G. Fritz, local contractor, left Thursday for Mineral, and from this point he will go to McGee Mountain. He has a contract to construct a lookout station on the summit of the peak.
Fritz was accompanied by Charles Lee, general superintendent of construction for the Lassen National Forest Service, who will superintend the work.
McGee Mountain is in Shasta county and is about 10,000 feet elevation. It is several miles north of Lassen Peak and is next highest mountain peak in this range.
Since old Lassen Peak has been erupting it was found necessary to abandon the one on that mountain. It will cover all the same territory and fires can be seen from this point as easy as from Lassen.
It will take several weeks to build this station as all of the material must be lugged up the mountain by horses and mules." (Red Bluff Daily News)
July 28, 1917: "One of the early eruptions of Mt Lassen shattered the forest bureau's lookout station on the summit. The bureau has just completed a substitute lookout station on Mt. Magee, ten miles to the north.
Mt. Magee is only 8,025 feet high, while Mt. Lassen is 10,400. The station is a building fourteen feet square with glass sides to the height of six feet. The forest guard sits in a wheeled chair and turns at ease to any point of the compass to watch for fires.
Before him is a table and an instrument for measuring the angle of direction of his blaze. If he discovers a fire he telephones to the supervisor's summer headquarters at Mineral. The supervisor calls up other lookouts on Turner mountain, Prospect mountain or Burney mountain and asks them to give him the angle of direction of the fire.
It is then a simple matter of plane table triangulation to locate the fire and send fighters.
Material for the construction of the station on Mt. Magee had to be packed on mules for a distance of eight miles. W.S. Hays of Montgomery creek is stationed there as a lookout." (Red Bluff Daily News)
June 12, 1918: "Mrs. Todd Williams of Portland left this city yesterday to take the position of lookout for the national forest on top of Mt. Magee, forty miles due east of Redding.
This is a job that several men have turned down after trial because it is so lonesome and so high up. The altitude is 7000 feet. The lookout has to live in a little house with windows on all sides. All he has to do is to sit in a wheeled chair and keep turning around at intervals and keep watch for forest fires and report them to National Forest headquarters by telephone.
Mrs. Williams took in provisions enough to last a month and probably it will be that long before she will see a human being. She declares she will stick it out all summer, and her look of determination warrants that she will keep her promise.
The lookout station was established on top of Mt. Magee after it was found that volcanic eruptions made Lassen Peak uninhabitable. To reach the new station a trip of twenty miles has to be made by mountain trail." (San Francisco Chronicle)
July 30, 1918: "For the first time in many years Magee peak is entirely bare of snow.
Mt. Magee is a fire lookout station in the Lassen national forest, and Mrs. Tod Williams, who occupies the revolving chair inside the little glass house 9000 feet in the air, is supplied with water carried on a pack horse.
The water is carried from the ranger station at the foot of the mountain in two ten-gallon cans, one slung on each side of a pack horse." (Santa Cruz Evening News)
July 1919: "Mrs. Ted Williams, of Portland, Ore., is again perched in the lookout station at the top of Magee Peak, in the Lassen National Forest. Mrs. Williams was the first woman lookout in the Lassen forest, and this is her second season on the job." (The Timberman)
August 25, 1923: "T.D. Goodman, forest lookout on the summit of Mt Magee, a mountain close up to Mt. Lassen as mountains go, but on the north, telephoned last evening by way of Montgomery Creek that the volcano opened in eruption at 7 o'clock and smoke continued to pour out of the crater until 7:30, when the darkness was so great he could not tell what kind of a caper the volcano was cutting up. The peak appeared quiet from here today." (Blue Lake Advocate)
June 1, 1930: "T. D. Goodman of Balls Ferry came in from Hat Creek ranger station, where he has been living the last month. He bought supplies at the local store, preparatory to taking up his duties Monday as lookout on McGee peak for the Lassen Forest Service during the fire season. 'Doc' took up a supply of wheat for his pet chipmunks." (The Searchlight)
October 5, 1930: "On account of the early rains, the firemen in the Hat creek district, were transferred from their stations to trail work, October 1, with the exception of Pete Aldridge of Cow Creek ranger station, who carries water and supplies to Lookout 'Doc' Goodman on McGee peak. The lookout is being kept on in case of lightning or set fires." (The Searchlight)
October 12, 1930: "Tuesday night snow fell on the peaks of the mountains, thus lessening the fire hazard to the extent that Lookout Goodman moved off McGee Peak, Wednesday, and will return to his winter home at Balls Ferry." (The Searchlight)
May 28, 1932: "T. D. Goodman arrived here (Burney) yesterday from his home at Balls Ferry. He will go on lookout duty soon on McGee peak for Lassen national park. The road to Cow creek ranger station, at the foot of McGee, is closed on account of snow. Goodman has been lookout there about 17 years." (The Searchlight)
Removed