Fire lookout · Jefferson County, Florida
Ashville
Jefferson County 100-foot Aermotor steel tower erected March 1956; dismantled around 2003, with its top 80 feet re-erected at a Madison County hunting preserve.
- Moved
- Private land
- Verified
Private land
No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. The record describes the re-erected top section as a private observation tower and names no public access.
Moved: The structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from. Dismantled around 2003. The top 80 feet were re-erected at the Gum Creek Hunting Preserve in Madison County. No source confirms that the structure still stands there.
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Private land. See the warning at the top of this page.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerAermotorThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1956
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- T2N R6E
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Jefferson County, Florida
- Coordinates
- 30.59564, −83.69785
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-fl-ashville
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.
The structure was moved. This view is from the position Firefinder shows for this record, at 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
- 1956 BuiltA 100-foot Aermotor steel tower was erectedSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1956 and 2003
- 2003 MovedDismantled into sections, date given as c.2003; top 80 feet re-erected at the Gum Creek Hunting Preserve, Madison CountySource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- TodayMovedThe structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from. 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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Ashville's lookout was a 100-foot Aermotor steel tower in Jefferson County, Florida.1 Aermotor, a windmill maker, also made galvanized steel fire towers under the Aermotor Corporation name.2 The record dates its erection to March 1956.1 The record puts the dismantling into sections at circa 2003, so that date is approximate.1 The top 80 feet were then set up again at the Gum Creek Hunting Preserve in Madison County, where the record calls them a private observation tower.1 The record names no public access to that upper section.1 No source we found says whether the upper section still stands, or what, if anything, remains at the original Ashville site.1
- Ashville - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Eastern U.S. Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/ashville.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Aermotor Windmill Company, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aermotor_Windmill_Company (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, type, what it is built of, design, height, status, agency, links easternuslookouts.weebly.com · No licence stated; facts only (county, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, status, height, design hints, register links). The site's own historical quotes, newspaper citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, access, 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
- Aermotor Windmill Company (Wikipedia) (opens another site)
- Ashville (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.