Fire lookout · Charlotte County, Florida
Punta Gorda Lookout Tower
100-foot Aermotor fire tower with a 7x7 cab at the Florida Forest Service's Punta Gorda Forestry Station, still used for fire observation as needed; registered 2024.
- 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 tower with 7x7 observation cabThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 31 ft (9 m)
- Agency
- Florida Forest Service - Punta Gorda Forestry Station
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Charlotte County, Florida
- Coordinates
- 26.83549, −81.97243
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-fl-punta-gorda
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
- 2024 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered March 13, 2024 as US 1783, FL 28; nominated by Brad EellsSource: 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 tower is 100 feet tall, an Aermotor design topped by a 7-by-7 observation cab, according to the National Historic Lookout Register.1 The register places it in Charlotte County, at the Florida Forest Service's Punta Gorda Forestry Station, and gives its elevation as 31 feet.1 The register does not give a construction date, so the year it went up is still unknown.1
Brad Eells nominated the tower, and the register listed it on March 13, 2024, as US 1783, FL 28.1 The register says the tower remains in service for emergency fire watch, as needed.1 I could not find an account of its fire history, staffing or earlier life, so those parts of the story are missing here.
Today it stands on the grounds of the Punta Gorda Forestry Station.1 I found no source saying the public may visit or climb it, so check with the Florida Forest Service before planning any trip there.
- Punta Gorda Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/fl/punta-gorda-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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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: 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, 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 1783 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Their watch has ended: Lee County fire towers relics of past - 2017 (opens another site)
- Punta Gorda (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.