author
Clyde P. (Clyde Phillips) Fickes
1884–1987
A century-spanning life in the American West shaped Clyde P. Fickes’s practical writing on forests, frontier work, and log construction. His books preserve the hard-earned knowledge of a pioneering U.S. Forest Service career.
1 Audiobook
Building with logs
by Clyde P. (Clyde Phillips) Fickes, W. Ellis (William Ellis) Groben
About the author
Clyde Phillips Fickes was born in Nelson, Nebraska, on November 2, 1884, and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, spending summers with his maternal grandmother in Bedford County. He studied engineering at Ohio Northern University and moved to Montana after graduation.
Fickes joined the U.S. Forest Service as a forest guard in 1907 and spent decades working across forests in the Northern Rockies. He served as Regional Architect for Forest Service Region 1 from 1929 to 1944, helping develop practical designs for lookout houses, cabins, and other forest facilities. He retired from the Forest Service in 1947.
He coauthored Building with Logs with W. Ellis Groben, a U.S. Department of Agriculture guide to log construction, and later wrote Recollections: The Forest Ranger, 1907–1944. Fickes died in Missoula, Montana, on December 29, 1987, at the age of 103.