Fire lookout · Lee County, Florida
Orange River Lookout Tower
Standing 100-foot Aermotor tower in Lee County, Florida, assembled in 1961 and now used by the Florida Forest Service for education.
- Standing
- Access unknown
- Verified
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Access unknown
We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower100-foot Aermotor steel tower with a 7x7 observation cabThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1961
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 10 ft (3 m)
- Agency
- Florida Forest Service
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Lee County, Florida
- Coordinates
- 26.69577, −81.77703
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-fl-orange-river
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 2.6 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
- 1961 BuiltAssembled on its current site (register) or erected at the Caloosahatchee Forestry Center (Forest Lookouts). No earlier build date is recorded.Sources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1961 and 2023
- 2023 EventSurvived the 2023 Hurricane Ian incident, per the registerSource: nhlr.org
- 2024 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered February 25, 2024Source: nhlr.org
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Orange River Lookout Tower is a 100-foot Aermotor steel tower with a 7-by-7 observation cab, in Lee County, Florida.1,2 The National Historic Lookout Register dates the assembly to 1961, at its present location.1 The Forest Lookouts archive gives the same year and describes a 100-foot steel tower raised at the Caloosahatchee Forestry Center.2 Neither source records an earlier build date, so 1961 is the earliest date I can confirm.
The two sources I could reach say nothing about who staffed the tower or whether it saw any notable fires.
The register reports that the tower came through the 2023 Hurricane Ian incident and is available for emergency service.1 The register also says the Florida Forest Service puts the structure to educational and interpretive use.1 The register added the tower to its list on February 25, 2024.1
The sources do not say whether the public may climb it, so I have not given a visiting rule. Anyone interested should ask the Florida Forest Service before going to the site.2
- Orange River Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/fl/orange-river-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Orange River, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/orange-river.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.
Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, what it is built of, 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) Gave us: 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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
- NHLR register entry US 1781 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Fire towers still used throughout Florida - 2015 (opens another site)
- Their watch has ended: Lee County fire towers relics of past - 2017 (opens another site)
- Orange River (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.