According to the commemorative plaque in Lily Bay State Parke (ME), the first continuously operated forest-fire lookout station was established privately by M.G. Shaw Lumber Co., a private lumber company in the Moosehead Lake region of Maine, in 1906.

This is not the first time that the quasi-public good of fire protection was provided by purely private means. But it is yet another example of how well-defined property rights – in this case, to unharvested lumber – create the necessary incentives for private actors to accomplish what most people generally consider a”public” charge.