FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Coconino County, Arizona

Dutch Joe

Tree-lookout replacement on Dutch Joe Ridge near Winslow, built around 1939-40; sources disagree on design; listed as gone.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerTimber tower with 7x7 wood-frame cab, 99 ft (1940 plan CT-1); 1939 reports say steel 110 ft and wood 100 ftThe design: Region 6 timber towers (CT, TT)
Built of
Not recorded
Built
Unknown
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Coconino County, Arizona
Coordinates
34.49022, −110.95911
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-az-dutch-joe

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 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

  1. 1939 EventJune: steel tower 110 ft to replace the tree lookout; September: 100 ft wooden tower being built by a CCC campSource: westlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1940 Event1940 plan entry, not confirmed as built: CT-1 timber tower, 99 ft, 7x7 wood-frame cab, on private property adjoining the National Forest; tower replaces an earlier tree lookoutSource: westlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1944 StaffedVirdia Haught, rancher, in charge; had been working for the Forest Service for several seasonsSource: westlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1956 FireBlaze endangered the area in June; station, two lumber camps and a ranch reported intact at noon Friday; lumber camps evacuatedSource: westlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 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.

Dutch Joe was a fire lookout on a ridge about 60 miles south of Winslow, in Coconino County, beside the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.1 It was planned to replace an earlier tree lookout.1

Plans shifted during 1939. In June the Winslow Mail reported a plan for a 110-foot steel tower to take over from the tree lookout.1 By September the same paper described a 100-foot wooden tower being built by the CCC camp on Chevelon Canyon, with a two-room caretaker's cabin planned at its base.1 A 1940 plan entry sets out a 99-foot timber tower, with a 7-by-7 wood-frame cab, on private land next to the National Forest.1 The sources disagree on the material and the height.1

In June 1944 the Winslow Mail named Virdia Haught, a rancher, as the person in charge at the lookout, and said he had been working for the Forest Service for several seasons.1

In June 1956 a blaze threatened the area. The Arizona Daily Sun reported that the lookout, two lumber camps and a ranch had all come through so far as of noon Friday, and that the lumber camps had been evacuated because people there might have been trapped.1

The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Arizona list marks Dutch Joe as gone.2 No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site today. A 1940 plan entry places the tower on private land beside the forest, so confirm who owns the ground before going there.1

  1. Dutch Joe - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (Ron Kemnow), https://westlookouts.weebly.com/dutch-joe.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Arizona lookouts list, 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, 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.