FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Coconino County, Arizona

Deadman

Gone D-6 cupola lookout in the Deadman Wash area north of the San Francisco Peaks; a 2020 visit found no tower foundation, only a concrete structure and benchmarks.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. A 2020 visit found the tower's own foundation no longer evident; a concrete structure on the top remains

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Reached by Forest Road 514 on national forest land; a 2020 post drove up it and advises a four-wheel-drive vehicle

Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
Forest Road 514 is narrow with loose cinders; four-wheel drive recommended (2020 post)

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabD-6 cupola-style lookout, the only example of that style in Arizona per the Coconino NF photo captionThe design: D-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
Unknown
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Coconino National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Coconino County, Arizona
Coordinates
35.43628, −111.62086
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-az-deadman

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its 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.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and a typical height for a lookout like it.

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. 1962 EventShown on the 1962 Flagstaff topographic mapSource: arizonarailsruinstrails.blogspot.com
  2. 1966 Replaced by a new structureNot shown on the 1966 O'Leary Peak topographic map, which shows a different tower; the 2020 post's writer thinks the O'Leary Peak tower replaced itSource: arizonarailsruinstrails.blogspot.com
  3. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Deadman lookout stood on a hilltop in the Deadman Wash area, north of the San Francisco Peaks, in the Coconino National Forest.1,2 It was a D-6 cupola-style lookout, and a Forest Service photo caption says it was the sole example of that design in Arizona.2

The 1962 Flagstaff topographic map shows the lookout, but the 1966 O'Leary Peak map does not. That later map shows the O'Leary Peak tower instead.1 The writer of a 2020 blog post thinks the O'Leary Peak tower replaced it.1 Peakbagging.com's table lists the site as "Deadman (LO site)," a label used when the building is gone or its status is unknown.3

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists its type as "Ground" and its status as gone.4

The only firsthand account I found is a 2020 blog post, by a writer who visited the site.1 The writer reached it by Forest Road 514, looked at the remains, and found that the tower's own foundation is no longer evident.1 The writer says the concrete structure on top appears to be a cistern with a building constructed on it, and mentions two benchmarks on the hilltop.1

The road is narrow and cindery, and the writer suggests a four-wheel-drive vehicle.1 The writer notes a stone chimney on private land near the road, but no source I read describes a closure or private land at the lookout site.1

  1. October 2020 post, Arizona Rails, Ruins, and Trails (blog), https://arizonarailsruinstrails.blogspot.com/2020/10/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Deadman Lookout, Coconino National Forest Photography, Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/coconinonationalforest/51913467347/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Arizona Fire Lookouts, Table 1, Peakbagging.com, http://www.peakbagging.com/Peak%20Lists/AZ_Lookout1.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Arizona Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/az/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: agency, ownership, links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, visiting details, 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.