Fire lookout · Tulare County, California
Cahoon Rock Lookout Site
Circa-1935 lookout cabin on a 20 ft timber tower in Sequoia-Kings Canyon; newspaper clippings describe staff and a 1945 lightning fire; register says nothing remains.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Nothing remains at the site, according to the register; removal date unknown.
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
- Type
- Enclosed towerUS Forest Service California Region 5 Plan BC-301 cabin atop a 20 foot enclosed timber towerThe design: BC-301
- Built of
- Wood
- Built
- 1935
- Height
- 500 ft (152.4 m)
- Elevation
- 9,288 ft (2,831 m)
- Agency
- National Park Service, Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Tulare County, California
- Coordinates
- 36.37865, −118.68963
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ca-cahoon-rock
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 its recorded height.
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
- 1935 BuiltBuilt circa 1935 to USFS California Region 5 plan BC-301: cabin on a 20 ft enclosed timber tower (register)Source: firetower.org
- 1936 StaffedA.S. Walker named as lookout at the Cahoon Rock Station (July 1936 clipping)Source: californialookouts.weebly.com
- 1945 FireLightning struck 150 yards from the station; Rose Vaughn fought the fire with a shovel and reported three more fires (July 1945 clipping)Source: californialookouts.weebly.com
- 1946 StaffedRose Vaughn left for the remote Cahoon lookout (June 1946 clipping)Source: californialookouts.weebly.com
- 1951 StaffedVaughn had held the job nine years per an August 1951 clipping; she fell ill and was taken off by pack trainSource: californialookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1951 and 2020
- 2020 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered April 24, 2020Source: firetower.org
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.
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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Cahoon Rock was a fire lookout in Tulare County, in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park.1 The register gives its elevation as 9,288 feet (2,831 m).1 It says the lookout was built around 1935, with a cabin laid out to a U.S. Forest Service California Region 5 plan (BC-301) sitting on top of a 20-foot enclosed timber tower.1
The Forest Lookouts site reprints several old newspaper clippings about the station.2 A July 1936 Fresno Bee item named A.S. Walker as the lookout at the Cahoon Rock Station, and described an earthquake that shook dishes out of cupboards and rocked the tower.2
In July 1945 park officials praised Rose Vaughn, the woman lookout at Cahoon Rock, for stopping a lightning fire on her own.2 A bolt hit the ground 150 yards from her station.2 She grabbed a shovel and fought the blaze, and by the time help came she had reported three other fires and had her own fire under control.2
Vaughn set off for the remote station again in June 1946.2 A 1951 clipping said she had held the job for nine years.2 In August 1951 she fell ill on the mountain, and a pack train carried her off to a hospital in Exeter.2
The sources do not agree on the station's elevation. The clippings give 9,000 feet in 1936, 10,500 feet in 1945 and 9,200 feet in 1951, while the register gives 9,288 feet.1,2
The register does not say when the lookout came down.1 It lists the removal date as unknown and says nothing remains at the site.1 The register names the National Park Service as the agency that administers the site.1 We found no other description of the site today, and no source we read says whether visitors can reach it.
- Cahoon Rock Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ca/cahoon-rock-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Cahoon Rock, Forest Lookouts, https://californialookouts.weebly.com/cahoon-rock.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: height 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, 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
- FFLOS register entry US 2049 (firetower.org) (opens another site)
- FFLA California lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Cahoon Rock Lookout - Forest Lookouts Page (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.