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Fire lookout · Navajo County, Arizona

Juniper Ridge Lookout

1959 54-foot metal tower with CL-100 cab in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest near Show Low; NHLR-registered 2002; Forest Service says visitors welcome in peak fire season.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. Forest Service says visitors are welcome during the peak fire season; staff may refuse visitors when unusually busy

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Juniper Ridge Trail #640; drive two miles west from downtown Show Low, turn right on State Highway 260, then left on Old Highway 160 to the trailhead
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower54-foot metal tower with live-in 14 by 14 foot CL-100 cab and catwalkThe design: CL-100
Built of
Steel
Built
1959
Height
54 ft (16.5 m)
Elevation
6,985 ft (2,129 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Navajo County, Arizona
Coordinates
34.26948, −110.19095
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-az-juniper-ridge

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. 1959 BuiltNHLR and Forest Lookouts both date the 54-foot tower and cab to 1959Sources: nhlr.org, westlookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1959 and 2002
  3. 2002 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered March 4, 2002 as US 420, AZ 27Source: nhlr.org
  4. 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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Juniper Ridge Lookout stands in Navajo County, Arizona, within the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, at an elevation of 6,985 feet.1 The National Historic Lookout Register dates it to 1959, when a 54-foot metal tower was fitted with a live-in cab of 14 by 14 feet and a catwalk.1,2 A separate lookout history site gives the same year and describes a K-brace tower with a CL-100 cab.2

The Register says the U.S. Forest Service administers the tower, with the Lakeside Ranger District as a cooperator.1 The Forest Service says the tower sees use at the height of fire season, but the sources read name no staff members and no fires it watched.3

The Register lists the tower as US 420, AZ 27, registered on March 4, 2002.1 It describes the lookout as being in active service.1

The Forest Service welcomes visitors at the height of fire season, but staff may turn people away when the tower is unusually busy.3 The trail page gives directions from downtown Show Low: drive two miles west, turn right onto State Highway 260 toward Payson and Heber, then turn left onto Old Highway 160 to reach the trailhead on Juniper Ridge Trail #640.3

  1. Juniper Ridge Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/az/juniper-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Juniper Ridge, Forest Lookouts (westlookouts.weebly.com), https://westlookouts.weebly.com/juniper-ridge.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Juniper Ridge Trail #640, Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r03/apache-sitgreaves/recreation/trails/juniper-ridge-trail-640 (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Juniper Ridge Lookout
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, county, elevation, what it is built of, 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
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: height, 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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

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