Fire lookout · Cochise County, Arizona
Sugarloaf Mountain Lookout
Also known as Sugarloaf
A 1935 CCC-built ground house on Sugarloaf Mountain in Chiricahua National Monument; the register says unstaffed and sources disagree on build details, but a public trail reaches it.
- Standing
- Open to the public
- Verified
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Open to the public. Reached by a public hiking trail in Chiricahua National Monument. The sources do not say whether visitors may enter the cabin, and NPS still uses it to monitor summer lightning.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- No, you have to hike
- Trail
- Sugarloaf Mountain Trail: moderate, 1.8 miles (2.8 km) round trip, starts at the Sugarloaf parking lot, uphill with little rough terrain.
- Staffing
- Not staffed (as of undated)
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Ground-level cab14x14 ft ground house with stone base and permanent overhang roof per NHLR; the CCC narrative describes frame construction on a masonry foundation with concrete basement, cistern and hardwood floorsThe design: National Park Service lookout
- Built of
- MixedGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1935
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- 7,238 ft (2,206 m)
- Agency
- National Park Service
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Cochise County, Arizona
- Coordinates
- 32.01111, −109.32639
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-az-sugarloaf-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 3.2 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
- 1935 BuiltBuilt by CCC enrollees from Camp NM-2-A as a fire lookout house; Company 828 began excavation and materials were packed in by mule; the narrative says it was finished in summer and fall 1935Sources: nhlr.org, npshistory.com
- No record between 1935 and 2004
- 2004 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered June 1, 2004 as US 575, AZ 55Source: nhlr.org
- 2008 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesWikidata gives a 21 November 2008 start time for a National Register contributing-property claim within the Chiricahua National Monument Historic Designed Landscape; the NPS page confirms the landscape is on the Register but I did not confirm this dateSources: wikidata.org, nps.gov
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Sugarloaf Mountain Lookout stands on Sugarloaf Mountain in Chiricahua National Monument, Cochise County, Arizona.1 Enrollees from the monument's Civilian Conservation Corps camp, NM-2-A, built it as a fire lookout house, and the register dates the work to 1935.1,2 Company 828 began excavating the foundation and carried building materials up by mule pack train, and the enrollees finished the house in the summer and fall of 1935.2 The register gives the lookout an elevation of 7,238 feet.1 The National Park Service gives the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain as 7,310 feet, so the two figures may describe different points.3
The register describes a 14-by-14-foot ground house with a stone base and a permanent overhang roof, and says it is one of two known examples of this NPS design.1 The camp's narrative says the house was wood-framed over a masonry base, with a concrete cellar, a cistern and hardwood flooring.2 The two accounts differ on how the building was made, so the design details are uncertain.1,2
The narrative says enrollees manned the house, but the sentence that says so gives no year.2 A later summary in the same narrative says a fire lookout had been constructed on Sugarloaf Mountain by 1937. That is compatible with a 1935 finish, but it gives a much looser date.2 The register says the lookout is not staffed, but it gives no date for that answer.1 The Park Service says lightning activity is still monitored from the lookout during the summer.3 I found no record of a fire tied to the lookout in the sources I read.
The register added the lookout on June 1, 2004.1 Wikidata lists it as a National Register contributing property within the monument's historic designed landscape, with a start date of 21 November 2008.4 The Park Service page confirms that the monument's designed landscape is on the National Register, but I could not confirm that 2008 date there.5 Nothing I read says the lookout has been moved, rebuilt or burned.1,2,3
Today the Sugarloaf Mountain Trail is a moderate hike of 1.8 miles round trip that starts at the Sugarloaf parking lot.3 The sources do not say whether visitors may go inside the cabin. Because it is still used to watch for summer lightning, treat it as a working building and enjoy it from the trail.3
- Sugarloaf Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/az/sugarloaf-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- A Narrative History of The Civilian Conservation Corps at Chiricahua National Monument, National Park Service, https://npshistory.com/publications/chir/ccc-narrative-history.pdf (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Sugarloaf Mountain Trail, National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/sugarloaf-mountain-trail.htm (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Sugarloaf Mountain Lookout, Wikidata, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q86928403 (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Chiricahua National Monument Historic Designed Landscape, National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/articles/850007.htm (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) 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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) (opens another site) Gave us: photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, 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
- NHLR register entry US 575 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- A Narrative History of The Civilian Conservation Corps at Chiricahua National Monument (National Park Service) (opens another site)
- Sugarloaf Mountain Trail (National Park Service) (opens another site)
- Chiricahua National Monument Historic Designed Landscape (National Park Service) (opens another site)
- FFLA Arizona lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Sugarloaf Mountain on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
- Wikidata item Q86928403 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.