OPB’s First Look: Restoration of historic SW Washington lookout begins again

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Good morning, Northwest.

A month ago, Don Allen and others who spent a decade in a painstaking effort to save the historic High Rock Lookout in Southwest Washington learned the building they’d worked so hard on had been vandalized.

Now, Allen and volunteers are working again to restore the lookout in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Sitting on a rock outcropping at more than 5,600 feet, the lookout offers unequalled views of Mount Rainier. It’s also an arduous climb to get materials to the site.

OPB’s Ian McCluskey and the team at “Oregon Field Guide” joined Allen and the volunteers to document the labor of love.

Meanwhile, in Southern Oregon, nickel mining has been debated for years. Now a Canadian company wants to open North America’s largest nickel mine there, and the Trump administration is directing agencies to speed up permitting for mineral extraction.

Here’s your First Look at Monday’s news.

— John Hill

Top story

Volunteers rally to repair High Rock Lookout after devastating vandalism

Don Allen was about to drive home from work when his phone began buzzing with messages.

His screen filled with images of broken windows, shattered glass, and a bludgeoned door. There had been a break-in.

But it wasn’t Don’s home. In fact, for Don, it was even worse.

It was a tiny, 95-year-old wooden structure perched atop a 5,685-foot pinnacle in Washington’s Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

For the past decade, on weekends and time off from his job as a manager of an electronics company that manufactures CO2 sensors, 63-year-old Don Allen had been making the three-hour drive from his home in Portland to lead a volunteer effort to save the historic High Rock Lookout. (Ian McCluskey)

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3 things to know

1. The small city of Granite in Eastern Oregon has received Level 3 - GO NOW evacuation orders, as the growing Olive Butte Fire threatens more structures, reaching nearly 400 acres as of yesterday. (Joni Auden Land)
2. Firefighting crews in Southern Oregon are working to contain the East Evans Creek Fire, which grew Saturday to an estimated 2,656 acres, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry. (Maria Carter, JPR and OPB staff)
3. Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport will celebrate its recently installed 70-foot-long blue whale skeleton this Thursday. (KLCC staff)

The Evergreen

The growing ‘Christian localism’ movement in Battle Ground, Washington

Camden Spiller, the CEO of a fast-growing company in Battle Ground, is buying and developing properties at a rapid pace, but many people are questioning whether he has a specific Christian vision for the city. OPB’s Southwest Washington Bureau Chief Erik Neumann joins us to talk about what’s happening in Battle Ground. (Erik Neumann and Julie Sabatier)

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Northwest headlines

• Portland man faces mountain of 50,000 tires dumped on land he just bought (Casey Frizzell)

• A Canadian company wants to open North America’s largest nickel mine in Southern Oregon (Justin Higginbottom, JPR)

• Economy, fruit prices and pest outbreak devastate Northwest pear industry (Anna King, Northwest Public Broadcasting)

• Phoenix project will add 40 affordable homes for older adults (Jane Vaughan, JPR)

• Microsoft’s climate-warming emissions surge 25%, driven by AI (Monica Nickelsburg, KUOW)

• What Xbox’s layoffs, massive reboot say about the gaming industry (Monica Nickelsburg, KUOW)

• Study finds dangerous chemicals in the breast milk of Seattle moms (Eilís O’Neal, KUOW)

• University of Oregon student wins international video game tournament (Nathan Wilk, KLCC)

Listen in on OPB’s daily conversation

“Think Out Loud” airs at noon and 8 p.m. weekdays on OPB Radio, opb.org and the OPB News app. Today’s planned topics (subject to change):

Today’s planned topics:

Topics subject to change.

• OSU study explores how wildfire smoke affects songbird behavior

• Portland Police Chief Bob Day on police response times and budget numbers

One more look

Eighty years later, survivors say Tule Lake still has lessons for America

Standing in front of a small concrete jail, one of the few remaining buildings at the former Tule Lake Segregation Center, Buddhist priest Duncan Williams led a prayer meant to alleviate suffering caused by hatred and ignorance.

The memorial service was part of a pilgrimage that brought about 400 people to the site over the Fourth of July weekend to remember the 331 people who died at the camp between 1942 and 1946.

The biannual pilgrimage brings together survivors, descendants, and supporters to remember those incarcerated at Tule Lake and preserve a history many fear is fading from public memory.

This year, many participants also drew connections between the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans and today’s immigration enforcement policies. (Roman Battaglia, JPR)

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