Fire lookout · Henry County, Alabama
Abbeville Lookout Tower
Henry County, AL tower built by the Alabama Forestry Commission in 1960; NHLR-registered 2009 as US 844; now decommissioned and privately owned, with no public access described.
- Status unknown
- Private land
- Verified
Private land
No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. Decommissioned and now privately owned per NHLR; no public access described in the sources read
Status unknown: We do not know yet whether it still stands. Register says it has been decommissioned and is privately owned; no statement of current condition or recent photo found
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Private land. See the warning at the top of this page.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- sources disagree
- Type
- Cab on a tower100' Aermotor MC-39 tower with 7'x7' cabThe design: Aermotor MC-39
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1960
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 496 ft (151 m)
- Agency
- George & Rebecca Taylor (administrators per NHLR); built by the Alabama Forestry Commission
- Land
- State land
- Location
- Henry County, Alabama
- Coordinates
- 31.60878, −85.26103
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-al-abbeville
View from the cab
What you see from the cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.
Downloads about 2.9 MB of terrain data the first time.
Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.
History
Then and now
- 1960 BuiltBuilt by the Alabama Forestry Commission (NHLR 'Built' field and description)Source: nhlr.org
- No record between 1960 and 2009
- 2009 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered December 2, 2009 as US 844, AL 23; nominated by Thomas KaufmannSource: nhlr.org
- TodayStatus unknownWe do not know whether it still stands.
Old maps of this spot
USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Abbeville Lookout Tower is in Henry County, Alabama.1 The Alabama Forestry Commission built it in 1960 as a 100-foot Aermotor MC-39 tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab.1,2
The Forest Lookouts site lists the tower under Henry County and the forestry commission, and gives little more.2 The sources we read do not name anyone who staffed the tower or any fire it watched.
The National Historic Lookout Register registered the tower on December 2, 2009, on the nomination of Thomas Kaufmann. It is registered as US 844, AL 23, and lists the site at 496 feet, or 151 meters.1
The tower has since been decommissioned and is now privately owned.1 The Register lists George and Rebecca Taylor as its administrators.1 The Register does not say when the tower was decommissioned or what condition it is in today.1 We found no information about public access, so anyone interested should ask the owners before going near it.
- Abbeville Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/al/abbeville-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Abbeville, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/abbeville.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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Where sources disagree
We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.
Sources disagree on whether it still stands.
- Firefinder research: Status unknown
- NHLR: Standing
Research (2026-10-09) gives unknown where the source records give standing. The page shows the researched status; please tell us if it is wrong.
Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, what it is built of, status, register numbers, agency, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) Gave us: ownership, links easternuslookouts.weebly.com · No licence stated; facts only (county, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, status, height, design hints, register links). The site's own historical quotes, newspaper citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story
More about this lookout elsewhere
- NHLR register entry US 844 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Abbeville (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.