FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Covington County, Alabama

River Falls Fire Tower

The register describes this believed 100-foot Aermotor as abandoned and in poor condition as of 2020; no build date or builder is documented.

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
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor, believed 100-footThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
Unknown
Height
Unknown
Elevation
332 ft (101 m)
Agency
Alabama Forestry Commission
Land
Unknown
Location
Covington County, Alabama
Coordinates
31.35388, −86.51357
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-al-river-falls

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. 2020 Condition assessmentRegister describes the tower as abandoned and in poor conditionSource: nhlr.org
  2. 2020 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterDate registered per NHLR detail page: March 24, 2020Source: NHLR register entry
  3. 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 National Historic Lookout Register lists the River Falls fire tower as administered by the Alabama Forestry Commission.1 It describes the tower as a 100-foot Aermotor, though only as a belief.1 We could not find when it was built, who built it, or why it went up in Covington County, and none of the sources we checked describes its early years.

The community of River Falls shares the tower's name.2 It sits in northwestern Covington County, with the Conecuh River running through it, and it took its name from a nearby waterfall.2 The town grew up around a lumber company in the late nineteenth century.2 A flood in 1929 covered the area with ten feet of water and left the whole town underwater.2 Census estimates for 2020 put the population at 551.2 The sources do not link any of this to the tower.

The register added the tower on March 24, 2020, and at that time it described the tower as abandoned and in poor condition.1 We found no newer report on its condition.

A 1819 News opinion column estimates there are probably under 75 historic lookouts still standing in Alabama, and says many are unsafe and that climbing them is illegal.3 We could not confirm whether this tower can be visited at all, so please do not climb it.

  1. River Falls Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/al/river-falls-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. River Falls, Encyclopedia of Alabama, https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/river-falls/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. 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 River Falls Fire Tower
Photo: Al Pelham, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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

  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, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.