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Fire lookout · Wicomico County, Maryland

Quantico Lookout (now at the Chesapeake Fire Museum)

Also known as Chesapeake Fire Museum

Wicomico County steel tower raised near Quantico (1931 per newspapers, 1941 per NHLR); moved in 1999 to the Chesapeake Fire Museum in Hebron, where it stands with its top 60 feet restored.

Original site: Quantico Lookout

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
Not staffed (as of 1970s)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor steel tower with a 7' x 7' metal cab and a roof walk (the Register calls it a 'widow's walk')The design: Aermotor
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
140 ft (42.7 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Maryland Forest Service built it (NHLR); the Chesapeake Fire Museum administers it (NHLR)
Land
Unknown
Location
Wicomico County, Maryland
Coordinates
38.41445, −75.67551
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-md-quantico-at-chesapeake-fire-museum

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. 1931 BuiltEvening Journal, July 16, 1931: a 100-foot tower recently erected at Quantico; The Forest Worker, September 1931: ready for service in July. Conflicts with the Register's 1941 dateSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1941 BuiltNHLR: constructed near Hebron in Wicomico County in 1941 by the Maryland Forest Service; conflicts with the 1931 newspaper datesSource: nhlr.org
  3. 1942 StaffedNewspaper report of an April 23, 1942 forest fire names towerman Marion Bailey of the Quantico lookoutSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1942 and 1999
  5. 1999 MovedMoved to the Chesapeake Fire Museum; the top 60 feet and cab were reconstructed and restoredSources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  6. 2000 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered March 1, 2000 as US 338, MD 1Source: nhlr.org
  7. Date unknown MovedMoved from Quantico to the Chesapeake Fire Museum.Source: FFLA
  8. 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 Quantico Lookout began as a steel fire tower near Quantico in Wicomico County, Maryland.1 It now stands at the Chesapeake Fire Museum in Hebron.2,3

Sources disagree on when it went up. A July 1931 newspaper notice reported that a 100-foot tower had recently been erected at Quantico, and a September 1931 forestry item said it was ready for service that July.1 The Register instead says the Maryland Forest Service built it near Hebron in 1941.2 It also gives the height as 140 feet, which does not match the 100-foot figure from 1931.2 We could not settle which account is right.

The tower was used for fire detection. The Register says the federal government financed it, and that it was also an Aircraft Warning Service site during the Second World War.2

A newspaper report of an April 1942 forest fire named a towerman, Marion Bailey, of the Quantico lookout.1 The Register says the tower was last staffed in the 1970s.2

In 1999 the tower was moved to the Chesapeake Fire Museum. The Register says its top 60 feet was reconstructed and restored there.2

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the original site as gone, and lists a relocated Quantico tower as standing.4 A directory listing gives the museum's street address as 27013 East Lillian Street in Hebron.3 We did not confirm the museum's opening hours or whether visitors may go up the restored top section, so check with the museum before you go.

  1. Quantico, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/quantico.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Quantico Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/md/quantico-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Chesapeake Fire Museum in Hebron, MD, FindCityOffice, https://www.findcityoffice.com/offices/museum/MD/wicomico-county/259678 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Maryland Fire Lookout Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/md/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, register numbers, dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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.