FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Gila County, Arizona

McFadden Peak Lookout

Also known as McFadden

A 1929 steel tower in the Sierra Ancha was replaced in 1964 by the concrete-and-metal cab that still watches Pleasant Valley today.

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. Reached by the unpaved McFadden Peak Road / Forest Road 561; it is a working Forest Service facility, not a public rental.

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Unpaved FR 561 to the summit; no indication the active lookout is open to climb.
Staffing
Staffed during fire season (as of 2026)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Two-story building10 ft concrete blockhouse with 14x14 ft CL-100 series flat-top metal cab and catwalkThe design: CL-100
Built of
Steel
Built
1929
Height
Unknown
Elevation
7,093 ft (2,162 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Tonto National Forest, Pleasant Valley Ranger District
Land
Federal land
Location
Gila County, Arizona
Coordinates
33.90990, −110.96559
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-az-mcfadden-peak

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 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. 1929 BuiltFirst lookout: 20 ft steel tower with 7x7 ft cabSource: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1929 and 1964
  3. 1964 Replaced by a new structure1930s cabin, stock barn and shed removed; replaced by current 10 ft concrete blockhouse with 14x14 ft CL-100 flattop cab and catwalkSources: nhlr.org, peakbagging.com
  4. No record between 1964 and 1996
  5. 1996 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered November 27, 1996 as US 194, AZ 4Source: 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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

McFadden Peak rises in the Sierra Ancha, in the Pleasant Valley Ranger District of the Tonto National Forest, a summit named for William McFadden.1,2 The first lookout here went up in 1929: a 20-foot steel tower topped by a 7-by-7-foot cab.1 Through the 1930s the site grew into a small outpost, with a cabin, a stock barn, and a shed added.1

Those early buildings came down in 1964, when the Forest Service replaced them with the structure that stands today: a 10-foot concrete blockhouse supporting a 14-by-14-foot CL-100 series flat-top metal cab with a catwalk around it.1,3

The peak also carries an older trace of government surveying: a benchmark placed by the Forest Service in 1926, before the first tower even existed, and a second benchmark set in 1938.3 McFadden Peak Lookout was added to the National Historic Lookout Register in 1996, listed as US 194 and Arizona's fourth entry.1

The lookout has continued to be staffed each fire season, watching for smoke across the Sierra Ancha.1,2 It is reached by the unpaved McFadden Peak Road, Forest Road 561.2 The tower remains an active U.S. Forest Service facility on federal land rather than a public rental, and visitors should treat it as a working lookout, not a place to climb uninvited.

  1. McFadden Peak Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/az/mcfadden-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Road trip guide: Conquering the McFadden Peak, dangerousroads.org, https://www.dangerousroads.org/north-america/usa/10692-road-trip-guide-conquering-the-mcfadden-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. McFadden Lookout, Arizona, peakbagging.com, http://www.peakbagging.com/AZPhotos/McFadden.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of McFadden Peak Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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: 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, agency, access, staffing, 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.