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Fire lookout · Apache County, Arizona

Maverick Mountain Lookout

An 80-ft Aermotor MC-39 steel tower on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, built in 1934 to replace a 1925 tower; the register lists it in active service.

Permission required

You need permission from the tribe or landowner before visiting. On the White Mountain Apache Reservation. A travel site says a recreation permit from the tribal Game and Fish department is required, invites readers to climb to the top, and says access to the tower varies; confirm current rules with the tribe.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Permission required. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower80-ft steel tower with 7 x 7 ft cab (Aermotor MC-39), built 1934 to replace a 60-ft tower from 1925The design: Aermotor MC-39
Built of
Steel
Built
1925
Height
80 ft (24.4 m)
Elevation
8,086 ft (2,465 m)
Agency
White Mountain Apache Agency
Land
Unknown
Location
Apache County, Arizona
Coordinates
33.62487, −109.68655
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-az-maverick-mountain

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 3.3 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. 1925 Built60-ft tower built on the siteSource: nhlr.org
  2. 1934 Replaced by a new structure80-ft steel tower with 7 x 7 ft cab replaced the 1925 tower; the register says it was one of three Aermotor MC-39 towers installed on the reservation that yearSource: nhlr.org
  3. No record between 1934 and 2002
  4. 2002 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered January 31, 2002; nominated by Dave Lorenz, AZ/NM RegistrarSource: nhlr.org
  5. 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.

Maverick Mountain rises to 8,086 feet on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Apache County, and the National Historic Lookout Register says its tower continues in active service.1 A tower about 60 feet tall went up on the site in 1925.1 In 1934 an 80-foot steel tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab replaced it, and the register says three Aermotor MC-39 towers were put up on the reservation that year, this one among them.1 A travel site calls the 1934 tower 60 feet tall, which is the height the register gives for the 1925 tower, so the two sources disagree about the height.2,1

The register names the White Mountain Apache Agency as the lookout's administrator, and it was registered on January 31, 2002, when Dave Lorenz, the AZ/NM registrar, nominated it.1 I did not find a dated record of who staffs the tower or of its fire history.

The lookout sits on tribal land.1,2 The travel site says visitors need a recreation permit from the tribe's Game and Fish department, and it warns that the access road is unpaved.2 The same site invites readers to climb to the top, but it also says access to the tower itself varies.2 Please don't climb it. Get the current permit rules from the tribe before you go.

  1. Maverick Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/az/maverick-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Maverick Mountain: Driving to the 8,086ft lookout in Fort Apache, RoadScout, https://www.roadscout.app/road/maverick-mountain-driving-to-the-8-086ft-lookout-in-fort-apache (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Maverick Mountain 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, 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, agency, access, 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.