By Janet Eastman
oregonlive.com
Hiker Sarah Brandt wandered into the past when she arrived in southwest Oregon’s Siskiyou Smokejumper Base where wildfire fighters once parachuted out of airplanes into blazing forests.
Brandt, who lives in Corvallis, didn’t know much about the legendary smokejumpers who launched experimental operations in the 1940s that continue to serve a role in modern firefighting.
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And she had no idea she had found in Cave Junction what historians consider the most authentic World War II-era smokejumper museum in the country.
What drew her in? “I have great interest, admiration and respect for people who work in fire,” said Brandt in late June after taking a free behind-the-scenes tour of the origins of strategic aerial wildfire suppression.
Brandt compared the rustic redwood office building to a time capsule. Still in place are the dispatch radio, Motorola intercom and rotary phone that alerted firefighters to board two 1940s Beechcraft jumper planes, which are still on the runway.
The U.S. Forest Service’s first smokejumper bases were built in 1943 in Idaho and Oregon to rapidly drop specially trained firefighters into remote areas. Some of the crew had never flown in a plane until they were taught how to jump out of one.
After completing their initial attack and when ground crews arrived, smokejumpers would carry out their gear, which weighed more than 120 pounds, for miles to the pick-up location.
In 1957, the Siskiyou smokejumpers, who had become models of the fledgling profession along the Pacific Coast, helped set up the Redding Smokejumper Base in northern California and later, Oregon’s Redmond Smokejumper Base.
Collectively, the Siskiyou crew made a total of 5,390 fire jumps over 39 fire seasons. The base closed in 1981 when the U.S. Forest Service centralized Oregon smokejumping operations in Redmond.
In Cave Junction, tour goers see the 1948 parachute loft, the oldest one in the U.S., where the Siskiyou crew inspected parachutes and jump lines suspended from the high ceiling.
Tour guide Gary Buck, who was a smokejumper from 1966-1985, told the group he learned to sew and repair his jumpsuit, harness and gear bags in the loft building as part of his extensive training.
“People come into the museum and later tell me there is more here than they expected,” said Buck, who has been volunteering at the museum for 21 years. “It’s fun and people get a real sense of the experience, fire science and this quick, effective response.”
The museum has irreplaceable equipment, log books and photos of smokejumpers in action or posing at the base nicknamed Gobi, after the isolated desert in North China and southern Mongolia.
The collection of action photos are rare, said Buck, because the firefighters were focused on the serious job they were doing.
“This is a real trust job,” and people rely on each other, he added.
In June, during the museum’s 15th annual work week to spruce up the buildings and grounds for summer visitors, Dorcey Alan Wingo was sitting at a table outside the barracks with men he met in 1975.
He lives in nearby Selma and said he comes to the old base often because he likes the camaraderie — “When the chips were down, these guys came through,” he said. “Total unselfishness” — and to help the nonprofit museum.
“I’m glad to be here with my old friends and I worry about them working up on the ladders while I’m on the ground playing lifeguard,” said Wingo, 78. “Smokejumpers have a sense of invincibility, but it’s usually gone by this age.”
Texas resident Larry Welch, 84, who was a smokejumper here as were his brothers Gary and Bernie, said a person who jumped at least once will always see themselves as a smokejumper.
“That’s why we come back every year to keep this place looking like it did and make it easy for the public to come here,” said Welch.
Welch jumped at the base starting in 1961 until the mid-1970s, then jumped in Redmond in 1992 before he retired. “I broke my pelvis and I could still pass the physical fitness test after that but my then wife didn’t like it,” he said.
When the base, which sits on leased Josephine County land, was under threat of being demolished, Welch donated $300,000 in 2019 and others pitched in about $200,000 more in funds and improvements to purchase the historic buildings.
The Siskiyou Smokejumper Base, adjacent to the public-use Illinois Valley Airport, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Dan Laws, whose late father David Laws was a smokejumper in Redmond and Cave Junction in the 1960s and 1970s, volunteered during the work week to restore the one surviving barracks.
“I miss my dad and feel connected to him here,” said Dan Laws, “and it’s an amazing experience to work with these guys and hear the stories firsthand.”
Visitors from every continent except Antarctica have signed the museum’s guest book.
“Families, vacationers, hikers” and others traveling on U.S. Highway 199 between Crater Lake National Park and Redwood National Park, “ask, ‘What is a smokejumper?’” Buck said. At this hands-on museum, they soon find out.
After the 30-minute tour, Brandt hung around in the former mess hall that serves as a gallery with vintage photos and other memorabilia on display.
“It’s great to see the photos of the guys back in the day,” she said. “They let you take photos, touch the real jumpsuits they wore and experience this place guided by someone who jumped.”
If you go: The Siskiyou Smokejumper Base Museum (facebook.com/siskiyousmokejumpers) is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily March 15-Nov.15 at 30902 Redwood Highway ( U.S. Highway 199 at Smokejumper Way ). Admission and guided tours are free (541-441-4804, joebuck47@gmail.com).
The museum property, part of the Illinois Valley Airport, is open for self-guided tours year-round.
People have rented the park-like property with picnic tables and grassy areas shaded by native trees for reunions and other private events.
The nonprofit museum relies on donations and the sale of books as well as hats and T-shirts branded with the Siskiyou Smokejumper Base logo of a candy-striped parachute, blue sky and lightning bolt.
While in Cave Junction, there is a downtown mural of smokejumpers by Cate Battles and in Grants Pass, a sidewalk art painting of smokejumpers by Cat Polland can be viewed at 5th & H Streets.
The Redmond Air Center, where smokejumpers, frontline hotshots and other wildland fire crews are trained, also offers free tours of the facility except during fire season (541-504-7200).
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