Fire lookout · Cleburne County, Alabama
Horseblock Lookout Tower
Also known as Horseblock Mountain
100-foot Aermotor fire tower on Horseblock Mountain, Talladega National Forest, Cleburne County; NHLR-registered 2022; build year unknown, photo dated 1948; 1976 bomb incident; USFS.
- Standing
- Access unknown
- Verified
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
- Trail
- Commons photos show an old jeep trail approaching the tower. The sources do not say whether the public may visit or climb it; check with the national forest office first.
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower100ft Aermotor tower with a diagonal staircaseThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 1,402 ft (427 m)
- Agency
- USFS (Talladega National Forest)
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Cleburne County, Alabama
- Coordinates
- 33.56044, −85.69917
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-al-horseblock
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 3.0 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
- 1948 EventRegister photo dated August 1948 (National Archives) shows the tower standing by then; build year not givenSource: nhlr.org
- No record between 1948 and 1976
- 1976 EventHomemade bomb exploded on the stairs as a young man carried it up the tower, almost to the top; he was killed and the tower received some structural damage (Decatur Daily, July 19, 1976, as quoted by the Register)Sources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1976 and 2022
- 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered July 24, 2022 as US 1690, AL 80Source: nhlr.org
- 2024 EventWikimedia Commons holds four photos taken 2024-11-17, including one titled stairs with missing stepsSource: commons.wikimedia.org
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Horseblock Lookout Tower stands on Horseblock Mountain in Cleburne County, Alabama, inside the Talladega National Forest, and the U.S. Forest Service administers it.1,2 The Register describes a 100-foot Aermotor tower whose staircase runs on a diagonal, but it gives no build year.1
A photo in the Register is dated August 1948, which suggests the tower was standing by then.1 The sources read say nothing about who staffed the tower or which fires it watched, so the early years are hard to pin down.
The one serious incident in the sources is from July 1976. A homemade bomb went off on the stairs as a young man carried it up the tower, nearly to the top. A Decatur Daily report, quoted by the Register and by the Forest Lookouts site, says the blast killed him and damaged the tower.1,2 The Register lists the tower as registered on July 24, 2022.1
Wikimedia Commons holds four photos of the tower taken in November 2024. One file title mentions stairs with missing steps, and another looks up through the stairs and tower.3 The sources do not describe access or say whether the public may visit or climb it. A file title mentions an old jeep trail approaching the tower, but that is not an access rule.3 Do not climb it. Check with the national forest office before you go, since the photo titles point to missing steps.
- Horseblock Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/al/horseblock-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Horseblock, Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/horseblock.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Category: Horseblock Lookout Tower, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Horseblock_Lookout_Tower (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, 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
- NHLR register entry US 1690 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Category: Horseblock Lookout Tower (Wikimedia Commons) (opens another site)
- Horseblock Mountain (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.