1975: Macedonia Tower Goes On Auction Block

By the mid 1970s, the era of the fire tower and the towerman was coming to an end in the Mark Twain National Forest. In 1974 the Macedonia Tower, located about 11 miles north of Doniphan, joined the list of closures and on April 24, 1975, the tower was put up for auction by the U.S. Forest Service. Pictured at right is towerman Charlie Hawk standing near the base of the stairway of the tower in April 1975. “You can see as far as your eyes will let you,” said Hawk, who measured the distance of the panoramic view from 150 feet with his own descriptive yardstick. About two miles southwestward was the Current River. About a quarter north was Colvin Hollow and when the sky was clear smoke at Alton could be seen. When the wind was from the south, smoke from forest fires in Arkansas was clearly visible. On days when conditions were less than favorable, vision was limited to about 10 miles. Hawk learned firefighting as a CCC corpsman in 1935 at Camp Bardley. In 1941, he helped close the camp as a staff sergeant. In 1965, he went to work with the forest service and was one of the last to serve as a tower man at Macedonia, which he described as ‘one of the best towers’ in the forest service system. The Macedonia Tower sentimentally was identified with the late Roy Robinett, a forest service employee from 1941 until his retirement in 1970. Robinett and his family occupied a residence at the tower site from 1941 until the home was removed in 1957. The towers became obsolete when fast-flying aircraft proved to be less expensive and more accurate.