Volunteers Begin Work at Alabama Fire Tower

Nearly two dozen volunteers from the Boy Scouts of America streamed into the Tuskegee National Forest on July 9 to clear and pile brush near the Pleasant Hill fire tower at the Taska Recreation Area.

They came from Montgomery to help Andrew Sumner earn his Venturing Gold Award Project, which is part of a youth development program of the Boy Scouts of America. Also on hand to help were 10 members of Crew 924 from Summer’s charter organization, Eastwood Presbyterian Church, and members of Boy Scout Troop 924 and Cub Scout Pack 924.

Tuskegee National Forest acting district ranger Stephanie Love said they were conducting the first of two phases of the revitalization and restoration of the Pleasant Hill Fire Tower site. “We are into restoration here. We are going to make this a destination site, an interpretative site for conservation education and education outreach.”

Love said this is another opportunity to get kids in the woods. “Not only working to fulfill some meaningful tasks, but to provide an opportunity for future generations to come, visit and learn about the fire towers of the 1930s and all the things that had to do with the Tuskegee Land Utilization Project of the 1930s.”

“This is the first phase of a master plan to refurbish the area, getting it ready to make it an actual attraction,” she said. The 100-foot steel fire tower constructed in 1936 is located at the end of an uphill trail leading out of the Taska Recreational Area on U.S. Highway 29 near Tuskegee.