page_title: Los Burros Ranger Station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Los Burros Ranger Station / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Barn at the Los Burros Ranger Station
context_page_description: The Los Burros Ranger Station is a forest ranger station situated in Apache County, Arizona. The station was manned by rangers who traveled to the nearby Lake Mountain Lookout.
context_section_description: The area was most likely named by sheepherders after stray donkeys which used to frequent the area due to the local water supply. Forest Road 224, upon which the station sits, is considered to be the route which was followed by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado on his searches for Cibola. As the Forestry Service began to develop its lookouts in Arizona forests, the men and animals needed to man those lookouts could sometimes be accommodated at local ranches/farms.  However the isolation of the Lake Mountain lookout necessitated the construction of structures to see to those needs. The station was constructed in 1909-10, the first to be built in the Lakeside district, on 240 acres east of Pinetop-Lakeside, Arizona. The station was built to house a fireguard, who rode to the nearby Lake Mountain Lookout to watch for forest fires. 
  The timber industry was very profitable in the region, which has a very high occurrence rate of lightning strikes, so a series of lookouts was created to guard against fires. The fireguard consisted of a combination house-office as well as a nearby barn, both constructed of one inch by twelve inch boards and one inch by four inch battens. With the development of the timber industry in the area, the station was also used as an office for the Forest Service timber sale administrator, which continued for the next 20-30 years. Over the years, the spring, as well as the meadows surrounding the cabin and barn were used by both cowboys and sheepherders driving their herds through the area. The station fell into disuse in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
caption: Barn at the Los Burros Ranger Station
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