FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Murray County, Georgia

Grassy Mountain Fire Tower

1938 steel K-brace fire tower on Grassy Mountain, Murray County, Georgia, in the Chattahoochee National Forest; NHLR-registered 2007; still standing but closed to climbing.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. Tower is fenced off and closed to climbing; the trail and summit clearing are open, per a trail guide. No public climb is described in any source read.

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
About four and a half miles round trip from Lake Conasauga, the highest lake in Georgia. The Lake Conasauga road closes from December 29 until March 1.
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower50-foot steel K-brace tower with an all-metal CL-100 series live-in cab; the NHLR gives the cab as 14 by 14 feetThe design: CL-100
Built of
Steel
Built
1938
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
3,511 ft (1,070 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Murray County, Georgia
Coordinates
34.86183, −84.67167
Registers
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ga-grassy-mountain

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 2.9 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. 1938 BuiltBuild year per the NHLR. No source gives a reason for the tower or a builder.Source: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1938 and 2007
  3. 2007 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered July 26, 2007; nominated by John MayerSource: nhlr.org
  4. 2014 Event2014 trail report: top of tower locked off and the forest road leading to it closed. Closure dates not found.Source: hikingtheappalachians.com
  5. 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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The National Historic Lookout Register says the Grassy Mountain tower was built in 1938.1 Forest Lookouts describes it as a 50-foot steel K-brace tower with a CL-100 series all-metal live-in cab, and the Register puts the cab at 14 by 14 feet.2,1 The tower stands on Grassy Mountain in the Chattahoochee National Forest near Lake Conasauga, in Murray County, Georgia.3,1 None of the sources read say why it was put up or who built it.

The sources do not agree on the height above sea level. The Register gives 3,511 feet for the site, while a Georgia tower list and a trail guide give 3,694 feet.1,4,5

None of the sources read name anyone who staffed the lookout or describe a fire it helped to watch. The Register lists the tower as registered on July 26, 2007, with John Mayer as nominator.1 The Register also warns readers not to confuse it with Glassy Mountain Lookout.1

A trail guide says the tower still stands, but a fence keeps visitors off it and climbing is barred for safety reasons.5 A 2014 trail report says the top of the tower was locked off and that the forest road leading to it was closed.6

The same guide says visitors may not enter the tower, but the trail is still open and the summit clearing still gives a full-circle view.5 The road to Lake Conasauga shuts from December 29 to March 1.5 The Forest Service's Lake Conasauga page also mentions hiking to the tower.7 None of the sources read mention a rental of the cab, and none say whether the forest road to the summit is open to cars now.

  1. Grassy Mountain Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ga/grassy-mountain-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Grassy Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/grassy-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Grassy Mountain (Georgia), Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassy_Mountain_(Georgia) (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Georgia lookout towers, tnlandforms.us, https://tnlandforms.us/gatowers.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  5. Grassy Mountain Fire Tower Trail, Cohutta Wilderness Trail Guide, https://cohuttawildernesstrails.com/trails/grassy-mountain-fire-tower-trail (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  6. Chattahoochee National Forest: Grassy Mountain Fire Tower and Songbird Trail, Hiking the Appalachians and Beyond, https://www.hikingtheappalachians.com/trail-reports/chattahoochee-national-forest-grassy-mountain-fire-tower-and-songbird-trail-chatsworth-georgia (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  7. Lake Conasauga, USDA Forest Service, Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r08/chattahoochee-oconee/recreation/lake-conasauga (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Grassy Mountain 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, 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
  2. tnlandforms.us fire lookout towers (Tom Dunigan) -- GA, NC, TN Gave us: register numbers, links tnlandforms.us (Tom Dunigan) · No licence stated; facts only (coordinates, county, elevation, NGS/GFC/BLL register cross-references, status where given). · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  3. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.