When Darrington District Ranger Harold J. Engles and trail foreman Harry Bedel decided to construct a lookout in 1931, they picked a high rock spire overlooking thousands acres of old-growth timber on the Snoqualmie National Forest to the east of Seattle, Washington. All the materials had to be lifted the last 1,000 feet via a windlass made from telephone wire. Although the Three Fingers Lookout was staffed for only ten years and abandoned in 1943, the daughter of the last observer led the project to restore the 14 x 14 L-4 groundhouse in 1986. Efforts to keep the building were encouraged by retired Ranger Engles who lived to see the project completed before his passing in August, 1993.