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Fire lookout · Barbour County, Alabama

Kennedy Hill Fire Tower

Barbour County tower built by the Alabama Forestry Commission in 1941; the register says it was sold around 2020, is privately owned, and it says the tower cannot be reached by Kennedy Tower Road.

Private land

No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. Privately owned per register; the register says the tower cannot be reached by Kennedy Tower Road, where a gate stands in front of the last house on the road

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
Not staffed (as of 2019)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower100-foot Aermotor MC-39 steel tower with 7x7-foot cabThe design: Aermotor MC-39
Built of
Steel
Built
1941
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
680 ft (207 m)
Agency
Private owner; built by the Alabama Forestry Commission (per register)
Land
Unknown
Location
Barbour County, Alabama
Coordinates
31.94193, −85.45132
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-al-kennedy-hill

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. 1941 BuiltBuilt by the Alabama Forestry Commission after a 1940 request from the Barbour County Board of RevenueSource: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1941 and 2009
  3. 2009 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered January 7, 2009; nominated by Thomas KaufmannSource: nhlr.org
  4. 2019 Condition assessmentVisit report of May 1, 2019 by Andrew Zerbe calls it a usual vandalized tower and records it as not staffedSource: nhlr.org
  5. 2020 EventSold by the state in a surplus auction around early 2020, per register; not corroborated by another sourceSource: nhlr.org
  6. 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Alabama Forestry Commission built the Kennedy Hill Fire Tower in 1941.1 The register says Barbour County's Board of Revenue asked the commission in 1940 for better fire tower coverage, and the commission responded by building a 100-foot steel tower, an Aermotor MC-39 with a 7-by-7-foot cab.1 A 1819 News profile calls the MC-39 the most widespread steel lookout model across Alabama's forests, with the LS-40 next.2 By 1944, the register notes, the county had four fire towers in service, completing the planned system.1

The register's visit report of May 1, 2019, by Andrew Zerbe, marks the tower as not staffed.1 Its comment calls it a "Usual vandalized tower."1 A power line corridor runs past the tower.1 We found no record of who staffed the tower or of any fire it watched.

The register says the state sold the tower at a surplus auction, roughly in early 2020, and that it now has a private owner.1 We could not confirm the sale from any other source we read.

The register says the tower cannot be reached by Kennedy Tower Road, where a gate stands in front of the last house on the road.1 Please do not climb it without the owner's permission.

  1. Kennedy Hill Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/al/kennedy-hill-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Thomas Kaufmann keeping Alabama's historic lookout towers, 1819 News, https://1819news.com/news/item/thomas-kaufmann-keeping-alabamas-historic-lookout-towers (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Kennedy Hill Fire Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
May 2019 photo
May 2019 photo (2019)Photo: Andrew Zerbe, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) 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
  2. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, agency, access, staffing, 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.