Yes, a steel pike falling 18 feet onto some poor kid ain't no joke.. We never booby trapped our forts, nor do I remember encountering any. Exact same historical timeframe as the letter in the post. The area I grew up had neighborhoods full of kids surrounded by plenty of woods, so the woods had "fort neighborhoods." Tree forts, ground forts, even an impressive dug-in fort. There was also a large abandoned and empty building that used to be a hall of some sort, which contained several forts within built of discarded bricks, and boards of wood laid across up in the rusty steel beams holding the roof up.