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Fire lookout · Tuolumne County, California

Duckwall Mountain Lookout

1935 CCC-built 100-ft steel fire tower in the Stanislaus NF; a 2019 NHLR visit calls it abandoned and unsafe, gated; FFLA still lists it standing.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. Access is gated; NHLR says only Forest Service staff and repeater-site representatives are allowed

Visit & stay

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

Access

Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Gated; the 2019 visit report calls the tower unsafe. The sources read describe no public route.
Staffing
Not staffed (as of 2019)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower100-foot steel tower with a 7 by 7 foot cab; Aeromotor design per Peakbagging.comThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Steel
Built
1935
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
5,835 ft (1,779 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Tuolumne County, California
Coordinates
37.96869, −120.11982
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ca-duckwall-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.

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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1935 BuiltBuilt by CCC workers; NHLR and Peakbagging.com both date it to 1935Sources: nhlr.org, peakbagging.com
  2. No record between 1935 and 1951
  3. 1951 Replaced by a new structureCinder block BC-2 residence built to replace a wood residence that burned in a wildland fire; the date of that fire is not givenSource: peakbagging.com
  4. No record between 1951 and 2017
  5. 2017 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered April 24, 2017 as US 1190, CA 121Source: nhlr.org
  6. 2019 Condition assessmentRegister visit report dated January 4, 2019: abandoned and unsafe, no longer used for fire detection, residence vandalized and burnedSource: nhlr.org
  7. 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.

The Civilian Conservation Corps built the Duckwall Mountain lookout in 1935, according to the National Historic Lookout Register, which describes a 100-foot steel tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab.1 Peakbagging.com gives the same 1935 date and calls the tower an Aeromotor design.2 The site sits in the Stanislaus National Forest in Tuolumne County, at 5,835 feet.1

Records describe a residence beside the tower.1,2 Peakbagging.com dates the cinder block building there to 1951, when it replaced a wooden residence lost in a wildland fire, and says the interior is damaged and needs major repair.2 The Register's description calls a BC-2 residence "still in use," but its January 2019 visit report says the residence "has been severely vandalized and burned."1

The sources disagree about staffing. The 2019 visit report says the lookout "has not been staffed for over a decade," and that its historic status rules out a rebuild.1 Peakbagging.com, which gives no date, calls it "in good condition" and says it "may be staffed during periods of fire hazard."2

The 2019 report calls the lookout "abandoned and unsafe" and says it is no longer used for fire detection.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as standing.3

Today the Register says access is gated, and only Forest Service staff and repeater-site representatives may enter.1 The lookout was registered on April 24, 2017 as US 1190, CA 121.1 The newest dated record is the 2019 visit, so the tower's condition now is unknown. Visitors should stay away from it, since the 2019 report calls it unsafe.1

  1. Duckwall Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ca/duckwall-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Duckwall Mountain Lookout, Peakbagging.com, http://www.peakbagging.com/CALookoutPhotos/Duckwall.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. California Lookouts (by County), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ca/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Duckwall Mountain Lookout
Photo: Bill Luedeke, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
1932
1932 (1932)Photo: Stanislaus National Forest Archive, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Duckwall Mountain Lookout
Photo: USFS Image - Mark Swift Collection, via 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, 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. 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, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.