FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Cochise County, Arizona

Silver Peak Lookout

CCC-built L-4 lookout of 1938 on Silver Peak in Cochise County, AZ; NRHP-listed 1988; burned around 1996, leaving ruins, a storage shed and a water cache.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower burned around 1996 per Ominous; ruins of the tower, a locked storage shed and an old water cache remain on the site

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
Ground-level cabL-4 type lookout, wood frame, 14 by 14 feet, with an outhouse, storage shed and water cisternThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1938
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coronado National Forest, Douglas Ranger District
Land
Unknown
Location
Cochise County, Arizona
Coordinates
31.90578, −109.19917
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-az-silver-peak

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. 1938 BuiltBuilt by the Civilian Conservation Corps as an L-4 type lookoutSource: ominous.app
  2. No record between 1938 and 1988
  3. 1988 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesListed on the National Register of Historic Places January 28, 1988Source: treealive.com
  4. 1996 BurnedTower burned down around 1996 during a thunder-snowstorm, per Ominous; the year is approximateSource: ominous.app
  5. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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 Silver Peak Lookout Complex was a fire lookout on the Douglas Ranger District of Coronado National Forest, in Cochise County, Arizona.1,2

The Civilian Conservation Corps built it in 1938.1 The tower was an L-4 type, wood-framed and 14 feet square.1 The site also held an outhouse, a storage shed and a water cistern.1 The access trail was first cut to suit mules during the lookout's working years.1

The National Register of Historic Places listed the complex on January 28, 1988, with a period of significance from 1925 to 1949.2

One listing site puts the complex at Paradise, Arizona, but the National Register record says Portal vicinity.1,2

According to Ominous, the tower was lost to fire around 1996, during a thunder-snowstorm.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the site as gone.3

The site is now in poor shape.1 Remaining features include a locked storage shed, tower ruins, and an old water cache perched on a rock pinnacle.1

  1. Silver Peak Lookout Complex - Paradise, Arizona, Ominous, https://ominous.app/browse/site/22207 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Silver Peak Lookout Complex, National Register of Historic Places listing 87002469, TreeAlive, https://treealive.com/nr/87002469 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. 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. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  3. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, 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.