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Fire lookout · Grant Parish, Louisiana

Catahoula Lookout Site

A 1933 CCC-built steel fire tower in Kisatchie National Forest, Grant Parish; taken out of service in 1982 and later removed by the Louisiana National Guard.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The tower was removed; no source describes what remains at the site.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower100-foot Aermotor steel tower with an LS-40 cabThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
228 ft (70 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Coordinates
31.51591, −92.46884
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-la-catahoula

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its 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.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and a typical height for a lookout like it.

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. 1933 BuiltBuilt by CCC Co. 1476 from Camp F-1 (register)Source: firetower.org
  2. 1942 StaffedCCC crew manned the tower until the CCC was disbanded in 1942; US Forest Service personnel then operated it until 1982Source: firetower.org
  3. No record between 1942 and 1982
  4. 1982 ClosedTaken out of service for state overflightsSource: firetower.org
  5. No record between 1982 and 2011
  6. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered February 24, 2011 as US 855, LA 2Source: firetower.org
  7. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Catahoula lookout stood in Grant Parish, Louisiana, inside the Kisatchie National Forest.1 The Former Fire Lookout Sites Register calls it the first tower built on the first Southern National Forest, and ties that forest to 1929.1

A Civilian Conservation Corps company, Company 1476 working out of Camp F-1, built the tower in 1933.1 It was a 100-foot Aermotor steel tower with an LS-40 cab.1 The CCC crew manned it until the corps was disbanded in 1942. After that, Forest Service staff ran the tower until 1982, when it was taken out of service for state overflights.1

A Coast and Geodetic Survey station description, written in 1934 and reproduced on a Louisiana lookout history page, calls it the Catahoula Federal Fire Tower and places it in Section 9, Township 6 North, Range 1 West.2 The register gives February 24, 2011, as the date the site was registered.1

After the tower was taken out of service, the Louisiana National Guard removed it and used it for demolition practice. The first attempt knocked it off its pilings, but it stayed upright, and it took two attempts in all.1

No source describes what remains at the site now. The register's only view of the site today is a photo of the approach to it.1

  1. Catahoula Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/la/catahoula-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Catahoula - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts, https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/catahoula.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Photo of Catahoula Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Current approach to lookout site
Current approach to lookout sitePhoto: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, elevation, status, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: county, type, links centraluslookouts.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, status, agency, staffing, 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.