Fire lookout · Rapides Parish, Louisiana
Woodworth Fire Tower
175-foot Aermotor tower built in 1951 in Alexander State Forest, Rapides Parish, Louisiana; NHLR-registered 1993. No source read gives current staffing or climbing rules.
- Standing
- Restricted access
- Verified
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. The tower sits in the forest's headquarters compound; no source read says whether visitors may climb it.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown (as of undated)
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower175-foot Aermotor tower with 7x7 cabThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1951
- Height
- 175 ft (53.3 m)
- Elevation
- 114 ft (35 m)
- Agency
- Louisiana Dept. of Agriculture & Forestry
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Rapides Parish, Louisiana
- Coordinates
- 31.13890, −92.47320
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-la-woodworth
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
- 1951 BuiltCurrent 175-foot Aermotor built; the site had held an earlier tower for yearsSource: nhlr.org
- 1954 AlteredTelevision camera in a dome casing mounted on the roof (June 1954)Source: centraluslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1954 and 1993
- 1993 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered June 3, 1993, nominated by Edward J. RobichauxSource: nhlr.org
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Woodworth Fire Tower stands in the headquarters compound of Alexander State Forest, in Rapides Parish, Louisiana.1,2 The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry administers it, according to the National Historic Lookout Register.1
The site held a tower for years before this one.1 The current tower is a 175-foot Aermotor that was not built until 1951.1 The Register says it stands on four large concrete foundations, set that way to withstand hurricane winds.1
A Forest Lookouts page says a television camera housed in a dome was set on the tower's roof in June 1954.3 The page gives no other detail about the camera.3
The Town of Woodworth says the tower is believed to be the world's tallest fire tower.2
The Register gives June 3, 1993 as the registration date, with Edward J. Robichaux, Assistant Chief of Forest Protection, as nominator.1
None of the pages read name fires the tower watched, and none say it has been moved, burned or restored since 1951.1,2,3
The pages read do not say who staffs the tower today or whether visitors may climb it.1,2,3 Because the tower sits in a headquarters compound, check with the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry before planning any visit.
- Woodworth Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/la/woodworth-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Alexander State Forest, Town of Woodworth, https://townofwoodworth.com/community/recreation-nature/alexander-state-forest/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Woodworth, Forest Lookouts (centraluslookouts.weebly.com), https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/woodworth.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, elevation, 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) Gave us: county, type, height, 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, 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
- NHLR register entry US 64 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- NHLR register entry (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Alexander State Forest (Town of Woodworth) (opens another site)
- Woodworth (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.