Heaven's Peak Fire Lookout, Fire lookout tower in Glacier National Park, Montana, United States.
Heaven's Peak Fire Lookout is a timber building in Glacier National Park at 6,810 feet elevation, standing on stone foundations and secured with cables. The structure was designed to withstand strong mountain winds while allowing observers to spot distant fires.
The building was constructed in 1945 by members of peace churches including Mennonites, Amish, and Quakers as part of a civilian service program. These workers were conscientious objectors who worked in remote national parks instead of military service.
The lookout shows how the park service wanted to watch for fires and brought workers into remote mountain areas to do this job. Today it reminds visitors that such buildings were part of daily mountain life before airplanes took over this work.
Reaching the building requires advanced hiking skills and physical endurance for steep mountain trails. It can be spotted from certain points along Going-to-the-Sun Road where visitors can photograph it with binoculars.
During 2011 restoration work, descendants of the original builders helped out and shared stories about encounters with bears during construction. These personal accounts connected the site's history to modern efforts to protect the building.
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