FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Perry County, Alabama

Cahaba Lookout Tower

Steel Aermotor MC-39 tower on the Talladega National Forest in Perry County, Alabama; the register gives 1936 and its own text says 1935.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower100 ft Aermotor MC-39 steel tower with a 7 ft x 7 ft cabThe design: Aermotor MC-39
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1936
Height
Unknown
Elevation
563 ft (172 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Talladega National Forest (Oakmulgee Ranger District)
Land
Federal land
Location
Perry County, Alabama
Coordinates
32.80207, −87.17305
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-al-cahaba

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 3.2 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

  1. 1936 BuiltNHLR build field says 1936; NHLR description says the Forest Service built it in 1935Source: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1936 and 2009
  3. 2009 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered June 23, 2009 as US 810, AL 11; nominated by Thomas KaufmannSource: nhlr.org
  4. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Cahaba Lookout Tower stands in Perry County, Alabama, on the Talladega National Forest.1,2 The U.S. Forest Service administers it, and the register lists the Oakmulgee Ranger District as a cooperator.1 It is a 100-foot Aermotor MC-39 tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab, and Thomas Kaufmann's article calls that model the most common steel tower in Alabama's forests.1,3

Sources disagree on the build year. The register gives 1936, yet its own description says the Forest Service built the tower in 1935.1

The register was entered on June 23, 2009, with Thomas Kaufmann as nominator.1 The sources read do not say who staffed the tower, when it stopped serving as a lookout, or whether the cab is open to visitors. Across Alabama, Kaufmann writes, many surviving towers are in poor shape and dangerous, and climbing them is against the law.3 Check with the Talladega National Forest before any visit, and do not climb a tower that is closed.

  1. Cahaba Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/al/cahaba-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Cahaba, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/cahaba.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Thomas Kaufmann: Keeping Alabama's historic lookout towers, 1819 News, https://1819news.com/news/item/thomas-kaufmann-keeping-alabamas-historic-lookout-towers (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Cahaba Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, what it is built of, status, register numbers, agency, ownership, 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
  2. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: 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
  3. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, agency, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.