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Fire lookout · Cleburne County, Alabama

Duggar Mountain Lookout Site

Talladega National Forest lookout: a CCC wooden tower of 1939 per the register, replaced around 1959-1960 by a steel tower moved from Burgess Point; gone by 2013.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. A 2013 hike notice calls the site the place of a removed tower; no source read describes a structure there now

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Inside the Duggar Mountain Wilderness in the Talladega National Forest. A 2013 hike listed the former tower site as a point of interest.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
A 2013 hike along a section of the Pinhoti Trail over Duggar Mountain listed the former tower site as a point of interest. No current road or trail rules were found.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower28-foot wooden tower with a 12'x12' cab (1939); replaced around 1959-1960 by a 60-foot steel tower relocated from Burgess Point
Built of
Wood
Built
1939
Height
Unknown
Elevation
2,155 ft (657 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Cleburne County, Alabama
Coordinates
33.88232, −85.58746
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-al-duggar-mountain

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its 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.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and a typical height for a lookout like it.

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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1938 EventAnniston Star item dated October 27, 1938: road to the tower declared unsafe; visitors to walk two milesSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1939 BuiltRegister: completed by the CCC for the U.S. Forest Service. A 1938 item already describes a wooden tower in use, so the date is disputedSource: firetower.org
  3. No record between 1939 and 1960
  4. 1960 RemovedRegister's Removed field: circa 1959-1960 (the wooden tower)Source: firetower.org
  5. 1960 Replaced by a new structureRegister: replaced around 1959-1960 with a 60-foot steel tower relocated from Burgess PointSource: firetower.org
  6. No record between 1960 and 2013
  7. 2013 EventHike notice dated 05/06/2013 calls the site the place of a removed tower; the removal date is not givenSource: jsu.edu
  8. 2018 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered December 8, 2018, nominated by Al PelhamSource: firetower.org
  9. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Duggar Mountain sits in the Talladega National Forest in Cleburne County, Alabama, and the register puts the lookout site at 2,155 feet, or 657 meters.1 The register says the Civilian Conservation Corps completed a 28-foot wooden tower with a 12-by-12-foot cab there in 1939, for the Forest Service.1 A 1938 item from the Piedmont Journal, quoted on the Forest Lookouts site, already describes a 30-foot wooden structure in use on the mountain. It says a steel 100-foot tower was expected to replace it.2 The 1938 and 1939 accounts do not agree, and we could not settle which date is right.1,2 The register also notes rock anchors that suggest an earlier, probably pole-type, tower stood on the summit.1

A one-room dwelling for the guard was being built in 1938, and that Piedmont Journal item says a party-line telephone is in both the house and the tower cab.2 The register says the lookout was manned by Charlie Sassnett and James Dunn in the late 1940s and early 1950s.1

The register dates the tower's removal to circa 1959-1960, and says it was replaced by a 60-foot steel tower moved from Burgess Point.1 A Jacksonville State University hike notice dated May 6, 2013 lists the former tower site among its points of interest, and calls it the site of a removed tower.3

The register also places a USGS survey monument several hundred feet from the tower site, at the highest point on the mountain. Its datasheet places the monument under the spot where the original lookout tower stood.1 The sources we read do not describe any structure on the summit today.1,3

The site lies inside the Duggar Mountain Wilderness, part of the Talladega National Forest.3 The 2013 hike was an 8.8-mile trek over the mountain.3 In October 1938 the Anniston Star reported that the road to the tower had been declared unsafe, and that visitors would have to walk two miles.2 We found no current access rules for the site, so check with the national forest before you go.

  1. Duggar Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/al/duggar-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Dugger Mountain, Forest Lookouts (quoting the Piedmont Journal and The Anniston Star, 1938), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/dugger-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Second Saturday Pinhoti Day Hike- Dugger Mountain- On May 11, Jax State News, Jacksonville State University, https://www.jsu.edu/news/articles/2013/05/second-saturday-pinhoti-day-hike--dugger-mountain--on-may-11.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

1939-1959 wooden tower
1939-1959 wooden tower (1939)Photo: Al Pelham, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Duggar Mountain Lookout Site
Photo: Al Pelham, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Later steel tower at Duggar Mountain
Later steel tower at Duggar MountainPhoto: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Information about Dugger Mountain namesake
Information about Dugger Mountain namesakePhoto: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, what it is built of, status, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, visiting details, 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

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