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Fire lookout · Mitchell County, Georgia

Newton Firetower

1940 Aermotor LS-40 fire tower in Mitchell County, Georgia, run by the Georgia Forestry Commission; the Register says it is still occasionally manned.

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. The Register gives no visiting terms. It lists the Georgia Forestry Commission's Flint District as cooperator; the description places a part-time operational forestry station at the tower's base.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower80-foot Aermotor LS-40 galvanized steel tower with 7-by-7-foot cabThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Steel
Built
1940
Height
80 ft (24.4 m)
Elevation
166 ft (51 m)
Agency
Georgia Forestry Commission
Land
Unknown
Location
Mitchell County, Georgia
Coordinates
31.30055, −84.32359
Registers
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ga-newton

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 3.2 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. 1940 BuiltRegister Built field gives 1940; its description says built between 1935 and 1940Source: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1940 and 2013
  3. 2013 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered January 17, 2013 as US 958, GA 16Source: nhlr.org
  4. 2013 StaffedRegister description: still occasionally manned, with a part-time operational forestry station at its base; date is the registration year, not a staffing logSource: nhlr.org
  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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Newton Firetower stands in Mitchell County, Georgia.1 The Register gives its elevation as 166 feet (51 m).1 The Georgia Forestry Commission administers the tower.1

The Register's Built field gives 1940, although its description says the tower went up at some point between 1935 and 1940.1 It is an 80-foot Aermotor LS-40, a galvanized steel tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab.1 The Register does not say who first staffed it or what it was built to watch.1

The Register says that 20 or 30 Georgia towers are still occasionally manned, and this one has a part-time operational forestry station at its base.1 It names no fire the tower watched and no past lookout.1

The Register added the tower on January 17, 2013.1 Its description says the tower is still occasionally manned, and the Register records no removal, relocation or closure.1

The Register gives no visiting terms.1 It lists the Georgia Forestry Commission's Flint District as a cooperator, so ask that office before visiting.1

  1. Newton Firetower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ga/newton-firetower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Newton Firetower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Newton Firetower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Newton Firetower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Newton Firetower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Newton lookout tower, GA37 Mitchell County, Georgia
Newton lookout tower, GA37 Mitchell County, Georgia (2021)Photo: Michael Rivera (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

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

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, what it is built of, status, register numbers, agency, 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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, dates, photos, 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.