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Fire lookout · Baker County, Florida

Olustee Fire Tower

A 100-foot Aermotor lookout the Forest Service erected in 1931 on the Olustee battlefield site; a CCC marker makes the origin contested.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Open to the public. On national forest land beside the battlefield trail. Current climbing rules were not confirmed; check before you climb.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
A 2.3-mile hike through the state park passes the tower, according to a trail listing. We did not confirm current climbing rules.
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerAermotorThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1931
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
177 ft (54 m)
Agency
Osceola National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Baker County, Florida
Coordinates
30.21302, −82.38901
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-fl-olustee

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 3.0 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

  1. 1931 BuiltErected by the U.S. Forest Service, per the register and the Eastern US Lookouts pageSources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1931 and 2013
  3. 2013 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on the National Historic Lookout Register, September 1, 2013Source: nhlr.org
  4. 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The U.S. Forest Service put up the Olustee Fire Tower in 1931, according to the register, which says this was before the Civilian Conservation Corps.1,2 It is a 100-foot Aermotor tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab, and it stands where Florida's biggest Civil War battle was fought.1

A Florida Times-Union item from September 1931, reprinted on the Forest Lookouts site, tells of a watchman who left the trapdoor open when he went down. When he returned, a buzzard had settled on the back of his chair, apparently watching for fire.2

The Civilian Conservation Corps appears in the tower's later story too. A historical marker at the site calls the tower "one of many fine CCC projects completed in Florida."3 That marker dates the corps to 1933 to 1942, which is after the register's 1931 date.3,1 The sources disagree. The marker may mean later work at the site, but none of the sources we read describes what that work was. A photo on the marker's listing shows CCC Company 418 at Camp P-67 at Olustee in 1937.3

Today the register names Osceola National Forest as the administrator.1 The state park that marks the battlefield sits in the same forest.4 A 2.3-mile hike through the state park passes the tower, according to a trail listing, and that listing says climbing the tower lets visitors picture how the Union and Confederate troops were positioned in the battle.5 We found no official word on whether climbing is allowed now, so check with the forest before you go up.

  1. Olustee Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/fl/olustee-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Olustee - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/olustee.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. A Legacy Remembered (historical marker), Historical Marker Database, https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=55674 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olustee_Battlefield_Historic_State_Park (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Olustee Battlefield Trail, Komoot, https://www.komoot.com/smarttour/e1720955023/olustee-battlefield-trail (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Olustee Fire Tower
Photo: 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, status, 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 LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: type, what it is built of, design, height, 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
  3. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, agency, access, 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

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