Mount Sheridan Yellowstone National Park

In 1930, the Landscape Division of the Department of the Interior National Park Service made the blueprints for the fire lookout for Mt. Sheridan, drawn and traced by K.C.M. (The blueprints currently are in the Montana State Library). Final approval signature by Horace Albright, Director N.P.S. with the date August 4, 1930.

In 1931, this one story 16 foot by 16 foot building was built on a concrete foundation. The base is of uncoursed rubble masonry. The upper portion is of frame construction with a hip roof.

In 1934, a newspaper reported the following: Floyd Keller, fire lookout on the top of Mount Sheridan in the park, had a visitor at his lonely outpost the other day. A purple finch skimmed down from the skies and darted into his cabin. Keller played host as best he could with crumbs and meat scraps. Mr. Finch remained for a few hours, then left only to return shortly with Mrs. Finch. Keller asked them to stay for supper. They did, and finally decided to remain in the cabin all night. The next day the parents returned with four little finches, and now Keller is wondering about other relatives.

In 1935, panoramic images were taken from the lookout site. The lookout person was Harvey Crowder and this was not a good year for him. In mid-July, Crowder had a visitor, Dick Lillig a radio engineer who had come to install a short-wave set. The night before he had prepared tea and placed it in a snow drift near his cabin. The next morning he had gone to serve ice tea to the engineer. He stepped out on the snow cliff to get it, and as he bent over the entire drift broke loose and hurtled downward. He fell and rolled over boulders and jagged rocks for nearly a thousand feet before he came to rest unconscious and his entire body severely lacerated. Lillig saw him catapult down the mountain side and summoned doctors and park rangers. The long trek from the mountain slope took nearly the entire day. An improvised stretcher brought the injured man four miles overland to a road truck, then over nine miles of trail to an ambulance waiting on the highway. The final leg, 85 miles of highway, brought Crowder to the hospital where examination showed no broken bones but a mass of deep cuts about the head, back and legs.

In 1936, around July 21, a forest fire believed started by lightning broke out near Madison lake and was burning on a half-mile front. The lookout station atop Mount Sheridan reported heavy smoke and a crosscheck from Mount Holmes gave the location of the blaze. Fifty CCC enrollees from the Nez Perce camp under two foremen were outfitted and departed by pack horse over the 10-mile trail to the inaccessible area in the south Old Faithful district.