DNR tower proudly served for 88 years

Grantsburg losing a landmark, but it’s being preserved for posterity

Dorene Snyder blew on her hands in the bitter cold, then reached out and grabbed the next available girder as she took another step upward on her final journey to the top of Grantsburg’s DNR tower. She’d made the climb many, many times over a span of 24 years from 1988 to 2011 as a smoke spotter for the DNR. Now, the tower was about to pass from its visible landmark spot at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to a new location.

The tower is about 95′ tall

John Dobbs, new owner of the tower

John Dobbs of Boulder Junction, WI saw the tower advertised for sale, so he bought it.

“It’s sad to see it come down, but I’m glad it’s going up somewhere,” said Snyder.

As for Dobbs, “I looked at no less than a dozen (towers), ranging from 80 feet to 110 feet (tall).

When he saw the Grantsburg tower, he knew he had what he wanted.

“The accessibility of this one is ideal,” said Dobbs.

The Grantsburg tower is about 85 feet from the ground to the cab on the top— which is about 10 feet high. So all-together, “This is a 95-footer,” said Dobbs.

Why move the tower from its home of 88 years?

Well, the Grantsburg DNR was finished with it — depending now on technology and cell phone use to get to fires quickly.

A story on Dorene Snyder jun the tower appeared in the Burnett County Resorter in 1995. A photo she took of the tower was on the right.

Snyder is not a fan of “cell phone technology,” to spot fires. She said, “In a dry year you can see fires get started from the tower. I think they’re going to regret it.

But then, For 24 years the top of the tower was Snyder’s, “home away from home.”

“There are still jigsaw puzzles up there,” she chuckled.

On Tuesday workers went up and down the nearly 100-foot structure, marking sections and individual girders to help make it easier to take the tower down.

“I want to preserve it exactly like it is. If I could have bought it and left it here, I would,” said Dobbs. Instead, he’s having it taken down piece by piece and he’ll put it back up on his property. “This is my first (DNR tower),” said the man who admits, “I like to collect old things that have history.”

For years he’s been collecting and refurbishing antique motorcycles. “I have a 1916 Harley Davidson. Every time I drive it, it breaks,” he chuckled. Breaking is not a problem — he just puts on his mechanics hat and fixes it.

“Anything old, I enjoy,” Dobbs said.

He looked up at the DNR tower as if he was a small boy with a giant erector set. “I enjoying taking it down because otherwise it would be destroyed forever.”

Dorene Snyder takes a final look at the tower

DORENE SNYDER’s final climb to the top of the tower included Bob Rombach of the, “We Are Network.” Together they scaled the tower for her final time.

“This tower is dear to my heart,” she said.

“You know this tower better than any of us,” shouted Dobbs.

He looked up at Snyder and said, “How many stairs are there?” She shouted back, “One hundred and twenty-six.”

Dobbs smiled, looked at others at the site and said, “I knew she’d know that.”

Originally, there was a radio-phone in the tower. “That’s what we used,” said Snyder. Eventually, portable radios replaced the old phone and communication between the tower and DNR personnel on the ground became easier.

Originally the tower was constructed in 1937 on the other side of the highway. Eventually, it was moved to its current site.

Snyder’s time in the tower varied, from an hour to several hours. Sometimes she didn’t leave until 8 p.m. “It just depended on the conditions,” she said.

Reflecting back on her life, Snyder recalled how her father helped build a similar tower in Sawyer County. That helped her understand the need for the tower in the community in which she lived.

While she can’t know how many lives or acres of land or structures may have been saved by her early reporting of smoke or fire, Snyder said, “Definitely, we saved a lot of structures.”

Her vantage point on the world helped her see, “smaller smoke.”

When she saw smoke, she’d call it to the DNR below. “I’d call it in, report it and hope another tower would access it and help pin-point (the smoke or fire) on a map,” said Snyder.

The tower was, “Vitally important,” said Snyder, adding, “The more times the towers picked up smoke the better.”

Snyder recalled one time when she spotted smoke in March or April and it resulted in a most unusual story.

“A man was burning on one side of the house, then went to the other side and the fire rekindled. I noticed it was burning and the man didn’t know it. We sent the DNR and they went to his home. When the man asked why they were there, DNR personnel said, “There’s a fire on the other side of your house.”

The man was totally surprised.

“Normally the DNR goes in first and tries to control the fire, but they may call for heavier units, fire departments, etc.,” Snyder said.

When asked how far away she could see smoke from the tower Snyder said, “We would not call in smoke over 20 miles away. But hopefully, if we thought we saw it, it’s in another tower’s path and they will see it before we do.”

On the unusual side, Snyder said she once saw black smoke very far to the southwest and it turned out to be a gas station on fire in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul. She once saw smoke from a paper mill fire in Duluth and a barn fire in Turtle Lake.

Depending on weather conditions, smoke could be seen a long way, while at foggy times, visibility could be under three miles — and at times the sunlight could wash out visibility.

Most of her spotting came in the daytime, but one night she was asked to crawl up the tower to look for a fire to the west. “It was foggy and I couldn’t see where it was at,” she said.

New owner, John Dobbs, labels the girders on the tower

ON TUESDAY the crane arrived and the “cab” at the bottom of the tower was removed. The disassembly and crane work was expected in earnest on Wednesday (Feb 19) and Dobbs hoped to be finished by the following day.

“We’ll take it in sections and pieces,” he said.

Along with it will go a lot of history scribbled in the steps and girders by many who climbed to the top. Stories of kids crawling up the stairs are abundant and there are many, many forms of graffiti etched on the steps. “I recognize a lot of the names,” said Snyder.

Bob Rombach and Dorene Snyder wave from the cab of the tower

“Recognizing the names, I know a lot of kids wrote on it,” said Rombach — who, by the way, survived the trip to the station above and even leaned out the window along with Snyder for a quick wave to onlookers.

For those who have their history etched in the tower and for many others who have been using it as an historic marker for years … well, it is disappearing … but certainly won’t be forgotten.