Improvements enhance Lookout Tower experience

One of the most spectacular views of fall colors in northern Oconto County is from the top of the Mountain Fire Lookout Tower.

Built during the winter of 1934-35, the 100-foot-high structure was part of a 19-tower network that watched over the Nicolet National Forest in the days before aerial surveillance to detect forest fires.

“It’s one of the last towers of its kind still standing anywhere,” said Jayme Sellen, executive director of the Tourism and Economic Development Corporation for the Oconto Region (TEDCOR).

The other 18 towers in the Nicolet system were dismantled starting in the 1970s, but the Mountain tower was put into service as a radio relay station for the U.S. Forest Service and Oconto County Sheriff’s Department from 1977-92.

TEDCOR and the Forest Service have been making improvements this summer at the tower site, which is located at the end of a gravel road off Old 32 Road in the Town of Riverview.

“We added a split-rail fence, and the Forest Service has been helping to clear some brush and better define the parking lot,” Sellen said. “We’re hoping to build some nostalgia for generations to come.”

Ideas include adding a “selfie station” so people can memorialize their visit to the tower on social media, she said.

The fall color season is quickly coming upon us. The Wisconsin Fall Color Report at www.travelwisconsin.com says Oconto County’s peak color forecast is for the third week in October, and fall colors were already estimated at 30% as of Sept. 27.

wbluhm@newmedia-wi.com