The No. 1 threat to Maine’s forests a century ago was not clear-cutting or insect infestations. It was fire, according to forestry experts and landowners.

The year 1903 had been particularly bad. Nearly a quarter of a million acres valued at nearly $1 million had been destroyed. Of course, this didn’t begin to compare with the ravages that would be caused by fire for several years beginning in 1947. But with a new cadre of fire wardens funded by the Legislature and the new forestry program at the University of Maine, it was clear the state was getting serious about protecting its valuable timber.

One of the greatest innovations to emerge from the fear that a towering inferno would consume the North Woods was the forest fire lookout station. The first one in the country was built on Squaw Mountain (recently renamed Moosehead Mountain) a century ago this spring. Back then, the most interesting element of this new idea was the six miles of telephone cable that was run up the mountain so the watchman could communicate with headquarters.

“It may seem a little novel to install a telephone in the dense forests of Maine, but while balloons are being used in the Russian-Japanese war and Marconi is still tinkering with the wireless message, the lumbermen of Maine are thinking up a few things in the scientific world,” boasted the Bangor Daily News on June 15, 1905.

Most people today envision a steel tower with a big observation box on top when they think of a forest fire lookout, but that was not the case in the beginning.

“The observatory is a log cabin structure with a flat roof from which the operator makes his observations every hour of the day,” wrote forest Commissioner Edgar E. Ring in his report for the year ending Nov. 30, 1906. In his book on the history of forest fire lookouts, David N. Hilton describes it as a “log cabin tower” with ladder access.

The BDN attributed the invention to “W. J. Lanigan of Waterville and W. M. Shaw of Bath, two men with bright ideas and well versed in forestry.” The most detailed account of its origins, however, was written many years later by Elmer Crowley and published in the forest commissioner’s report for 1939-1940. Young Crowley had the flash of insight that led to the innovation.

The University of Maine graduate was working as a forest engineer for the M. G. Shaw Lumber Co. in the summer of 1904. He and William Shaw, who managed the company’s woods operation, were visiting the summit of Squaw Mountain. Crowley had never been to the top of such a high mountain before and he was impressed at being able to see the traces of smoke from mills and from the Canadian Pacific train that was steaming through the forest.

“It was then that the thought occurred to me and on the instant I asked Mr. Shaw if this would not be a good place for a forest fire watchman,” Crowley recalled. “I expressed my opinion that one man on the mountain could do more and better work … than 100 men traveling through the woods. …. The only remark that Mr. Shaw made about my suggestion was that he thought a man hurrying down the mountain to report a fire would probably break his neck before he reached the phone.”

Later that summer Crowley was in the drafting room perfecting a plan for a better skidder, when Shaw walked up to his table with a quizzical look. He said, “Crowley, I don’t know but that was a pretty good idea [having to explain again what it was Crowley had said to him that day weeks before]….do you think you can work it up before next year’s fire season?”

Crowley designed the maps and the other accoutrements for the project, including a handmade alidade for pinpointing the location of distant “smokes” on a map table. Then he slung the whole contraption over his shoulder and lugged it up the mountain. He had been told not to spend too much money because only M. G. Shaw Lumber Co. was willing to foot the bill. It was only an experiment. The telephone would be installed at the fire station.

William Hilton, a recent graduate of Greenville High School, was hired to be the watchman from 1905 to 1908. Hilton eventually went to the University of Maine and became a vice-president for Great Northern Paper Company. That summer he spotted about 25 fires, reporting them to headquarters by phone.

The experiment was an instant success.

“We know that this was the first station established in Maine, and have always supposed that it was the first in this country,” Crowley wrote years later.

Soon it seemed everyone wanted one. Crowley participated in creating the maps for Bigelow, Attean, White Cap, Kineo, and Spencer mountains during the next two years. By 1910 there were 24. By 1919 there were 64 “lookout towers,” and by 1954 there were 77, according to Philip T. Coolidge in his book “History of the Maine Woods.”.

A lookout was even placed on Mount Katahdin, but it was abandoned in the early 1920s because “it was too high for convenient access and the view too much obscured by clouds.” according to Coolidge.

Today, the era of the fire tower has ended. Airplanes fly over the woods looking for “smokes,” and radios have replaced telephones, said Jim Downie of the Maine Forest Service. The system devised by Maine ingenuity that revolutionized forest fire protection is now just a memory, although some of the fire towers are still there if you go for a hike up certain mountains.

Wayne E. Reilly has edited two books of Civil War era diaries and letters including “The Diaries of Sarah Jane and Emma Ann Foster: A Year in Maine During the Civil War.” He can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.