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Fire lookout · Beauregard Parish, Louisiana

Merryville Fire Tower

Steel Aermotor lookout in Beauregard Parish, Louisiana, built in the early 1950s and removed by 2021; a former lookout site since 2022.

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 sources disagree
Type
Cab on a towerSteel Aermotor tower with a 7 x 7 ft metal cabThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Steel
Built
Unknown
Height
Unknown
Elevation
170 ft (52 m)
Agency
Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry
Land
Unknown
Location
Beauregard Parish, Louisiana
Coordinates
30.72110, −93.50580
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-la-merryville

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 3.3 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. 1999 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered September 1, 1999 as US 322, LA 3; nominated by Keith HawkinsSource: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1999 and 2015
  3. 2015 RemovedEstimate only: Wikipedia says it appears to have been torn down between 2015 and 2016, judging from old aerial imagerySource: en.wikipedia.org
  4. 2021 RemovedRegister says removed by 2021; no exact date foundSources: nhlr.org, firetower.org
  5. 2022 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterAdded to the former lookout sites register May 22, 2022 as US 2085, LA 6Source: firetower.org
  6. 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 Merryville Fire Tower was a steel Aermotor lookout in Beauregard Parish, Louisiana.1 The register dates its construction to the early 1950s and describes a steel Aermotor tower with a 7-by-7-foot metal cab.1 The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry administered it.1 The register says the state maintained it to detect fires in emergencies and supplement aerial patrols, as it does for the nearby Gordon Tower.1

The National Historic Lookout Register listed the tower on September 1, 1999, as US 322, LA 3.1 The nomination came from Keith Hawkins of the Louisiana-Texas chapter of the Forest Fire Lookout Association.1 The register also says the tower was removed by 2021.1

A separate register of former lookout sites added the location on May 22, 2022, as US 2085, LA 6, and repeats that the tower was removed by 2021.2 Wikipedia's list of Louisiana towers marks it as torn down and estimates from old aerial imagery that it came down between 2015 and 2016.3

The sources I checked do not name the people who staffed the tower or any fire it helped to spot. Both registers record the tower as removed, so there is no standing lookout to visit.1,2

  1. Merryville Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/la/merryville-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Merryville Fire Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/la/merryville-fire-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. List of fire lookout towers in Louisiana, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fire_lookout_towers_in_Louisiana (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Merryville Fire Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Merryville Fire Tower
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on whether it still stands.

    • NHLR: Standing
    • FFLOS: Gone
    • Wikipedia: per-state fire lookout tower lists with coordinates: Gone

    NHLR lists lookouts that were standing when registered.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, 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. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: register numbers, 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
  3. Wikipedia: per-state fire lookout tower lists with coordinates Gave us: county, links Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikipedia). Facts only (parish/county, nearest town, coordinates, status); the article's own prose/notes are not reproduced, per this project's policy. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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

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