Thea Applebaum Licht on Maine’s fire tower maps:
In the summer of 1956, the Beat writer Jack Kerouac ascended the North Cascade Mountains, climbing up through the glacial crests of Washington State to Desolation Peak, where he would assume a summer post as a fire lookout for the United States Forest Service. […] The images featured here are versions of what Kerouac calls his “panoramic”: circular maps custom-made for the fire towers that once dotted the American wilderness like land-bound lighthouses.
Go look at those fire tower maps. What beautiful artifacts! And what useful tools they must have been — purpose-built for use from a specific perspective.