Jemez Forest Telephone Line
O’Rourke J. 2006. Jemez Forest Telephone Line. LA-UR-06-3549. Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos, NM
This report documents a telephone system that played an integral part in the Forest Service’s campaign against fire in the Jemez Forest from 1906 until the 1940s. The length of the Jemez Forest telephone line expanded from just thirty-five miles at the end of 1906 to several hundred miles by 1947. Many artifacts of the Jemez Forest line, consisting mostly of insulators high in the trees, still exist across the Pajarito Plateau and the larger area of the Jemez Forest. This report presents a history of the Jemez Forest telephone line, as well as an analysis of its existing artifacts. An indepth analysis focuses on dating the telephone insulators and the lines to which they once belonged within the area of the Pajarito Plateau. The report is divided into five sections. The first section looks at the context of the Jemez Forest telephone line, including the political and social issues surrounding the early forest reserves and Forest Service. The second section discusses the early fire strategies developed for the National Forests as well as specific fire lookouts built in the Jemez Forest. Section three looks at how the Jemez Forest telephone system evolved to serve the local residents. This section also describes how human events, such as the Depression era’s Civilian Conservation Corps and the Manhattan Project of World War II, impacted the Forest Service telephone line on the Pajarito Plateau. Section four examines the technology of the telephone system developed by the Forest Service, including the ground return system and the various types of telephone insulators used over a forty-year period. Section five explains the methodology used to analyze the artifacts and date the remnants of the Forest Service line.