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Fire lookout · Manistee County, Michigan

Udell Lookout Tower

The last fire lookout tower standing in the Huron-Manistee National Forest, built in 1936 and no longer open for climbing.

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. Site reachable by forest road but tower is not climbable; no NHLR plaque, access roads poorly signed and unreliable by GPS

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Off Forest Road 5207 near Wellston, Michigan; visit reports warn mapped/GPS routes can be wrong
Staffing
Not staffed (as of 2020)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerPrefabricated steel-angle tower on concrete pedestals, enclosed hip-roofed steel cabThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1936
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
1,031 ft (314 m)
Agency
Huron-Manistee National Forest, Manistee Ranger District
Land
Federal land
Location
Manistee County, Michigan
Coordinates
44.20744, −86.09972
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mi-udell

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 3.8 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 BuiltBuilt under a 1936 fire control plan, three years after the Manistee National Forest's 1933 creation; the NHLR's own description text instead gives 1940 and credits the CCC, but this conflicts with Wikipedia and the NRHP period of significance (1925-1949, with 1936 marked as the key year)Sources: en.wikipedia.org, npgallery.nps.gov
  2. No record between 1936 and 1991
  3. 1991 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered July 1, 1991 as US 12 / MI 1Source: nhlr.org
  4. 1996 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesListed on the National Register of Historic Places August 22, 1996, reference 95001013, for engineering and conservation significanceSource: npgallery.nps.gov
  5. 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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

A steel tower in the Manistee pines

The Udell Lookout Tower stands in the Manistee Ranger District of the Huron-Manistee National Forest, off Forest Road 5207 near Wellston, Michigan. The Manistee National Forest had only been created in 1933 when, in 1936, a fire control plan for the area called for the tower's construction.1,2 The National Historic Lookout Register's page for the tower gives a different year in its summary description, saying it was "constructed by the CCC in 1940"; the earlier date is the one backed by Wikipedia and by the National Register of Historic Places' own period of significance for the site, which runs 1925–1949 with 1936 marked as the key year.3,1,2

It is a 100-foot steel skeleton tower, its angle-iron frame bolted together and galvanized against rust, resting on four concrete piers. At the top sits a boxy cab under a hipped roof, sheet-steel on the outside, with a wood floor and glass on all four sides so a lookout could scan the horizon in every direction. A house and garage were built for the site not long after the tower, then hauled off elsewhere roughly a decade later.1

Udell worked as a fire lookout into the 1960s, when the Forest Service leaned more on aerial patrols and ground towers like this one lost their job.1 It is now the last fire lookout tower standing in the Huron-Manistee National Forest.3,1 The National Historic Lookout Register added it in 1991 as US 12 / MI 1, and the National Register of Historic Places listed it on August 22, 1996, citing its engineering and its place in the conservation history of the forest.3,2

The tower is not kept open for climbing. Register visit reports from 2019 and 2020 describe the lower flights of stairs removed and the base wrapped in barbed wire, with the remaining wood and glass in poor shape, and graffiti visible from the ground.3 A small interpretive sign stands at the site, though the tower itself carries no register plaque, and visitors note that the access roads are easy to lose on a GPS.3 A Forest Service communications tower stands about a hundred yards off but does not encroach on the site.3 Udell is unstaffed, and whether any volunteer program covers it is unclear.3

  1. "Udell Lookout Tower", Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udell_Lookout_Tower (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. National Register of Historic Places listing detail, NPGallery, https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/95001013 (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. "Udell Lookout Tower", National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mi/udell-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of Udell Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Udell Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Udell Lookout Tower
Photo: US Forest Service, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · source

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Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, 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 -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: what it is built of, design, links easternuslookouts.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. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: height, register numbers, dates, photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: type, register numbers, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, staffing, visiting details, 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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