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Fire lookout · St Francis County, Arkansas

Pinetree Lookout Tower

A steel lookout on the Pine Tree Research Station in St. Francis County; the 1960 date is for the land, and sources disagree on its height.

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 tower with a diagonal staircase; a 1954 survey description gives a four-legged steel frameThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
Unknown
Height
Unknown
Elevation
213 ft (65 m)
Agency
Arkansas Forestry Commission
Land
State land
Location
St Francis County, Arkansas
Coordinates
35.08692, −90.92911
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ar-pinetree

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

  1. 1954 EventCoast and Geodetic Survey station description refers to a lookout tower three miles south of Pinetree; not confirmed as this towerSource: centraluslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1960 EventDivision of Agriculture obtained the property from the U.S. Forest Service (the land, not the tower)Source: nhlr.org
  3. No record between 1960 and 2020
  4. 2020 Condition assessmentNHLR site visit dated 9/20/20Source: nhlr.org
  5. 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered August 21, 2022 as US 1695Source: 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.

Pinetree Lookout stands in St. Francis County, on the Pine Tree Research Station, an 11,850-acre Division of Agriculture property north of Interstate 40.1,2 The National Historic Lookout Register says the Division obtained the property in 1960 from the U.S. Forest Service, and it lists the build date as unknown.3 The register describes a 100-foot Aermotor with a diagonal staircase.3

A 1954 Coast and Geodetic Survey station description, copied onto a Forest Lookouts page, refers to a lookout tower three miles south of Pinetree. It describes a four-legged steel structure with a six-foot square steel and glass cab, about 110 feet overall.4 The register's 100 feet and the survey's 110 feet do not agree, and the survey does not say that it describes this tower. If it does, the tower was standing before the 1960 land transfer, but the sources do not settle that.3,4

The register does not describe staffing.3 The Encyclopedia of Arkansas says that watchmen generally lived alone at or beside their towers and spent their daytime hours watching the woods for smoke.2 I found no record of who watched Pinetree or of any fire it spotted.

The Encyclopedia counts Pinetree among fourteen Arkansas lookouts on the register.2 The register records a site visit on September 20, 2020, and the tower was registered in August 2022, which suggests it was standing in 2020.3

Preserve Arkansas says most of the state's surviving towers remain standing mainly because they are a practical site for modern telecom gear. I could not confirm whether Pinetree hosts such equipment.5 The station is working research land, so check with the station before you visit, and do not climb the tower without permission.1

  1. Pine Tree Research Station, Division of Agriculture, University of Arkansas, https://aaes.uark.edu/research-locations/pine-tree-research-station (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Forest Fire Lookouts, Encyclopedia of Arkansas, https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/forest-fire-lookouts-7905/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Pinetree Lookout Tower (US 1695), National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ar/pinetree-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Pinetree, Forest Lookouts (Central US Lookouts), https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/pinetree.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Forest Fire Lookout Stations, Preserve Arkansas, https://preservearkansas.org/forest-fire-lookout-stations (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Pinetree Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Pinetree Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Pinetree Lookout Tower
Photo: 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, elevation, what it is built of, status, register numbers, 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: county, type, agency, ownership, links centraluslookouts.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
  3. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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.