Photograph of Watchman Lookout Station — Photograph by Ian Poellet, CC BY-SA 4.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Watchman Lookout Station No. 68

Built in 1932 (National Park Service rustic). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

From the record

“The Watchman Lookout Station No. 168 is one of two fire lookout towers in Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. For many years, National Park Service personnel used the lookout to watch for wildfires during the summer months.”
Wikipedia article Watchman Lookout Station, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 28 National Register listings published here for Klamath County · listed in 1988 · category: Building · built in 1932, National Park Service rustic, by Merel S. Sager, National Park Service.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. Off Rim Dr. on The Watchman, Crater Lake, 97604
When was it listed? December 1988
Category. building
Also known as. Crater Lake National Park MRA
Census division. Crescent Lake
When was it built? 1932
Architectural style. National Park Service rustic
Architect. Merel S. Sager, National Park Service
National Register reference number. 88002626 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

182 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 182 fires within 5 miles of Watchman Lookout Station No. 68 between 1992 and 2020, burning about 4,482 acres in total. 114 started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	114
Recreation and ceremony	49
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6
Smoking	6
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Arson/incendiarism	2
Debris and open burning	1
Other causes	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
7 September 1999	Natural	under an acre	Crater Lake National Park	BYBEE
7 September 1998	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Crater Lake National Park	LOOP
6 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Crater Lake National Park	PINNACLES
6 September 1998	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Crater Lake National Park	TSUGA
5 September 2019	Natural	under an acre	Crater Lake National Park	HILLMAN
5 September 1993	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Crater Lake National Park	ANNIE
5 September 1993	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Crater Lake National Park	DUTTON
4 September 2012	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Crater Lake National Park	RIM

Every fire recorded in Klamath County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Comfort Station No. 72	under 500 feet	1988
Comfort Station No. 68	under 500 feet	1988
Sinnott Memorial Building No. 67	0.2 miles	1988
Rim Village Historic District	0.3 miles	1997
Crater Lake Lodge	0.4 miles	1981
Crater Lake Superintendent's Residence	0.9 miles	1987

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 88002626 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Klamath County	All 28 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.