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Fire lookout · Winn Parish, Louisiana

Gum Springs Lookout Tower

An 80-foot Aermotor LS40 tower built in 1935-36 by the Forest Service and a CCC crew, beside the Gum Springs Recreation Area in Kisatchie National Forest.

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
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower80-foot Aermotor LS40 steel-frame tower with a 7x7-foot cabThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1936
Height
80 ft (24.4 m)
Elevation
322 ft (98 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Winn Parish, Louisiana
Coordinates
31.89917, −92.78333
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-la-gum-springs

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 3.5 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. 1936 BuiltRegister's Built field gives 1936; its description says built during 1935-1936 by the Forest Service and CCC Troop F-6Source: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1936 and 2011
  3. 2011 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered February 18, 2011 as US 903, LA 6Source: nhlr.org
  4. 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.

Gum Springs Lookout Tower stands in Kisatchie National Forest in Winn Parish, Louisiana, beside the Gum Springs Recreation Area.1 The register describes an 80-foot Aermotor LS40 tower with a steel frame and a 7-by-7-foot cab, roughly 24 meters tall.1 It was built during 1935 and 1936 by the Forest Service and a Civilian Conservation Corps crew that the register calls Troop F-6.1

The tower is part of the wider CCC effort on the forest.2 The National Register nomination for the recreation area says the corps erected eighteen steel lookout towers across Kisatchie between 1933 and 1941, and that this tower was likely one of them.3,2 The Park Service page names the crew as Company 5407 from Camp F-6 near Calvin, with 145 workers assigned in 1937.2 The register's "Troop F-6" and the Park Service's "Camp F-6" probably describe the same CCC unit in different words.1,2

Beside the tower stands the original firemen's dwelling, constructed in phases from 1935 to 1958.1 The register calls it the last remaining CCC-period building on National Forest land in Louisiana, and says it has been moved about 280 feet from its first site.1 None of the sources read for this story say who staffed the tower or when it last watched for smoke.

The National Register nomination describes the tower as extant, so it was still standing when that was written.3 The register lists it as registered on February 18, 2011, and notes that the tower sits outside the recreation area's National Register boundary.1

The recreation area itself is open daily, with a campground and picnic sites.2 No source consulted says whether the tower is open to visitors or safe to climb, so anyone planning a visit should check with the Winn Ranger District first.1

  1. Gum Springs Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/la/gum-springs-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Gum Springs Recreation Area, National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/places/gum-springs-recreation-area.htm (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Gum Springs Recreation Area, National Park Service, https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/ba4a906e-f881-467e-b08c-0a066944922c (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Gum Springs Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
View from tower base
View from tower basePhoto: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Firemen's house circa 1935
Firemen's house circa 1935 (1935)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, elevation, type, 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: county, 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. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. 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

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