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Identification:
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Preferred Structure Name:
| Shadow Mountain Fire Lookout
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Structure Number:
| HS-0043
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Other Structure Name(s):
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Other Structure Name(s)
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1.
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Shadow Mountain Patrol Cabin
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Park:
| Rocky Mountain National Park
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Park District:
| ROMO West Unit
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Historic District:
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Historic District
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| No records. |
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Structure State:
| Colorado
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Structure County:
| Grand
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Region:
| Intermountain
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Cluster:
| Rocky Mountain
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Administrative Unit:
| Rocky Mountain National Park
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LCS ID:
| 010531
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Historical Significance:
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National Register Status:
| Entered - Documented
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National Register Date:
| 08/02/1978
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National Historic Landmark?:
| No
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Significance Level:
| Local
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Short Significance Description:
| Significant under criterion C for its representation of NPS rustic architecture (1932-33).
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Long Significance Description:
| The Shadow Mountain Fire Lookout is significant for its rustic design. Stephen Mather and Horace Albright advocated rustic design within the National Park Service as early as 1918 believing that buildings should blend with their natural surroundings. This building best represents rustic design as advocated by Park Service administrators and designers. Members of the NPS San Francisco Landscape Architecture Division, in cooperation with John Coffman, NPS Chief Forester, designed the building. Albert H. Good, in his landmark book, Park and Recreation Structures (1938), believed Shadow Mountain to be one of the best rustic buildings in the Service, saying that it is "illustrative of the happy results where a masonry structure can appear to grow out of a natural rock outcrop." (Part I, 159). Moreover, Shadow Mountain Fire Lookout is the only fire detection structure remaining in Rocky Mountain National Park. It represents early fire policies of the National Park Service. The Park stationed watchmen and women at Shadow Mountain between 1933 and 1968.
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Construction Period:
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Construction Period:
| Historic
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Chronology:
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Physical Event
| Begin Year
| Begin Year AD/BC
| End Year
| End Year AD/BC
| Designer
| Designer Occupation
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1.
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Built
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1932
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AD
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1933
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AD
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Landscape Division, S.F.
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Landscape Architect
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2.
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Rehabilitated
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1982
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AD
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1982
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AD
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NPS
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3.
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Restored
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1994
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AD
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1996
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AD
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NPS (Williamsport Training Center)
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Function and Use:
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Primary Historic Function:
| Fire Lookout
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Primary Current Use:
| Patrol Cabin
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Structure Contains Museum Collections?:
| No
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Other Functions or Uses:
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Other Function(s) or Use(s)
| Historic or Current
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1.
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Ranger Station
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Historic
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2.
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Museum (Exhibition Hall)
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Historic
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3.
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Cabin/Lookout
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Historic
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4.
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Visitor Contact (Visitor Center)
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Historic
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Physical Description:
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Structure Type:
| Building
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Volume:
| 2,000 - 20,000 cubic feet
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Square Feet:
| 546
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Material(s):
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Structural Component(s)
| Material(s)
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1.
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Foundation
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Fieldstone
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2.
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Framing
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Wood
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3.
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Walls
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Wood
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4.
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Walls
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Concrete
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5.
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Roof
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Shingle
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6.
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Walls
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Stone
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Short Physical Description:
| Three-story, square plan stone and frame building. Top floor is observation deck and living quarters. Second and first stories are stone over concrete. Porch and stairs wrap around the exterior. Epitome of NPS rustic design.
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Long Physical Description:
| The three-story frame and stone building is square in plan. The pyramidal wood shingle roof is painted green. The top floor is an observation room with sash windows on three sides. These are boarded over unless occupied. The interior chamber is finished with vertical board and cupboards painted light green. The third floor also has a plank observation deck with a log railing, which is accessible to visitors. The second and first floors are stone over concrete, accessed via the stairs to the third floor (second floor) and a stone stoop (first floor). The building grows out of the rock formation. With its fieldstone base and log observation deck, the Shadow Mountain Fire Lookout epitomizes rustic design.
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