Fire lookout · Chilton County, Alabama
Perry Mountain Lookout Tower
1937 Forest Service 100-ft Aermotor tower in Talladega NF, Chilton County; NHLR-registered 2009; no condition, staffing or access report 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 tower with 7'x7' cabThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1937
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 669 ft (204 m)
- Agency
- U.S. Forest Service
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Chilton County, Alabama
- Coordinates
- 32.75926, −86.95606
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-al-perry-mountain
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 2.9 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
- 1937 BuiltBuilt by the Forest Service as a 100-foot Aermotor tower; register Built field and Forest Lookouts agree on 1937Sources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1937 and 2009
- 2009 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterDate registered June 23, 2009; 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Perry Mountain Lookout Tower stands in the Talladega National Forest in Chilton County, Alabama, and the U.S. Forest Service administers it.1 The Forest Service built it in 1937 as a 100-foot Aermotor tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab.1,2 The register gives its elevation as 669 feet, or 204 meters.1
I found no source that names the people who staffed the tower or the fires it watched. Forest Lookouts lists the county as Perry rather than Chilton.2 The register itself says Chilton County, so this account follows the register.1
The National Historic Lookout Register lists June 23, 2009 as the date it registered the tower, after a nomination by Thomas Kaufmann.1 The register names the Oakmulgee Ranger District as a cooperator.1 OpenStreetMap maps a "Perry Mountain Fire Tower" at about the same spot, tagged as a lattice observation tower.1,3
The register describes the tower in the present tense.1 I found no condition report, no record of removal or relocation, and no later account of its state.
Nothing I found says whether the tower is open to visitors. Before going, ask the Oakmulgee Ranger District, and do not climb the tower on the strength of this account.1
- Perry Mountain Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/al/perry-mountain-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Perry Mountain, Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/perry-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Perry Mountain Fire Tower, OpenStreetMap node 358997195, https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/358997195 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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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
- OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures (opens another site) Gave us: 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 816 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Perry Mountain (Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com)) (opens another site)
- "Exploring the Forgotten Fire Towers of Alabama" article (opens another site)
- OpenStreetMap node 358997195 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.