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Fire lookout · Modoc County, California

Tulelake NWR Lookout Site

Modoc County, CA steel lookout tower on Tulelake NWR, built about 1937; sources disagree on height and which tower stood there; now gone, a concrete pad remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. A concrete pad is all that remains at the site; 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
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor open steel tower with a 7x7 observation cabin, 80 ft per the register; a 1937 newspaper describes a 100 ft all-steel tower topped by a small steel houseThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Steel
Built
1937
Height
Unknown
Elevation
4,042 ft (1,232 m)
Agency
Department of the Interior - National Fish and Wildlife Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Modoc County, California
Coordinates
41.83788, −121.51324
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ca-tulelake-nwr

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 3.5 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. 1937 BuiltRegister says constructed circa 1937; a January 1937 newspaper says CCC crews from the Clear Lake camp had just completed the all-steel towerSources: firetower.org, californialookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1937 and 2020
  3. 2020 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered April 1, 2020 as US 1956, CA 110Source: firetower.org
  4. 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 (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Tulelake National Wildlife Refuge lookout stood on a peninsula on the refuge's southern border, in Modoc County, California.1 The register says the tower may have been called "Peninsula" for that reason.1

The register dates the tower to about 1937 and describes an Aermotor open steel tower, 80 feet tall, with a 7-by-7 observation cabin.1 A January 1937 newspaper report, quoted on a California lookouts site, says Civilian Conservation Corps crews from the Clear Lake camp had just finished an all-steel tower, 100 feet tall and topped by a small steel house, set on steel base beams and concrete foundations.2 The newspaper expected it to be used mainly during the hunting season.2 The register says it served wildlife observation and perhaps fire detection.2,1

The accounts do not match up. A May 1937 report says workers were taking down a large steel tower at the biological survey headquarters on the west side of Tule Lake. It was to move to the Upper Klamath Lake reserve, where game agents would use it to watch for poachers.3 A July 1938 report says one 100-foot steel tower had been taken apart, moved and rebuilt, and that a second 100-foot tower had been erected at the Peninsula patrol station.2 We could not tie these reports to the register's tower, so which steel tower stood on the peninsula remains unresolved.

The register says a concrete pad is all that remains at the site, and that the removal date is unknown.1 We found no source describing the site beyond that pad, and nothing we read says whether the spot is open to visitors.

  1. Tulelake NWR Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ca/tulelake-nwr-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Tulelake NWR (Peninsula), Forest Lookouts California, https://californialookouts.weebly.com/tulelake-nwr-peninsula.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Tulelake NWR HQ, Forest Lookouts California, https://californialookouts.weebly.com/tulelake-nwr-hq.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Tulelake NWR Lookout - 1964
Tulelake NWR Lookout - 1964 (1964)Photo: Tulelake NWR Headquarters, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
1964
1964 (1964)Photo: Tulelake NWR Headquarters, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) 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
  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. 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.