Fire lookout · Lowndes County, Alabama
Mount Willing Lookout Tower
Lowndes County, Alabama tower administered by the Alabama Forestry Commission; 100-foot Aermotor MC-39 built by CCC Company 4434; NHLR-registered 2009. No staffing or access record found.
- 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
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower100-foot Aermotor MC-39 steel tower with 7 by 7 foot cab, built by CCC Company 4434The design: Aermotor MC-39
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1938
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 348 ft (106 m)
- Agency
- Alabama Forestry Commission
- Land
- State land
- Location
- Lowndes County, Alabama
- Coordinates
- 32.07290, −86.71860
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-al-mount-willing
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 2.8 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
- 1938 BuiltRegister Built field gives 1938; the same entry's description says the tower dates to 1936Source: nhlr.org
- No record between 1938 and 2009
- 2009 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered December 24, 2009 as US 857, AL 35; nominated by Thomas KaufmannSource: nhlr.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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Mount Willing Lookout Tower stands in Lowndes County, Alabama.1,2 The National Historic Lookout Register gives its elevation as 348 feet (106 m).1
The Register gives 1938 as the build year, but its own description says the tower dates to 1936, so the two figures disagree.1 The description calls it a 100-foot Aermotor MC-39 steel tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab, built by CCC Company 4434, which the Register says was also a junior African-American unit.1 By 1942 the Civilian Conservation Corps had built 61 lookout towers across Alabama, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.3
The Register added the tower on December 24, 2009, as US 857, AL 35, nominated by Thomas Kaufmann.1 A blog post gives the Alabama number as 36 rather than 35.4
The Alabama Forestry Commission is listed as the tower's administrator.1,2 The sources read do not say who staffed the tower or what fires it watched. The Forest Lookouts page for Mount Willing gives only the county and the commission's name, and the Register page has no visit reports.2,1
None of the sources read describes a move, a fire or a demolition, and none gives a condition check after the 2009 registration. Current condition and access are not recorded in these sources. Anyone planning a visit should contact the Alabama Forestry Commission first.
- Mount Willing Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/al/mount-willing-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Mount Willing, Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/mount-willing.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Civilian Conservation Corps in Alabama, Encyclopedia of Alabama, https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/civilian-conservation-corps-in-alabama/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Mt. Willing Lookout Tower, Jackson's Ramblings (jacksonsramblings.com), https://jacksonsramblings.com/mt-willing-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, 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
- OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures (opens another site) Gave us: type, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, 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
- NHLR register entry US 857 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Civilian Conservation Corps in Alabama (Encyclopedia of Alabama) (opens another site)
- Mt. Willing Lookout Tower (Jackson's Ramblings (jacksonsramblings.com)) (opens another site)
- Mount Willing (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
- OpenStreetMap node 358997192 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.