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Fire lookout · Hubbard County, Minnesota

Badoura Lookout Tower

1934 CCC-built 100-foot tower in Badoura State Forest near Akeley; staffed until 1979, still used by nursery staff; sources disagree on the maker.

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. Still used by Badoura Forest Nursery personnel as a radio antenna and emergency lookout; no public climbing is described. Easily seen from Highway 64.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower100-foot stairway tower with a metal cab; the Register says Aermotor, the Hubbard County list says McClintock MarshallThe designs: Aermotor, McClintic-Marshall
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1934
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
1,427 ft (435 m)
Agency
Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources
Land
Unknown
Location
Hubbard County, Minnesota
Coordinates
46.86124, −94.72391
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mn-badoura

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 4.2 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. 1933 EventSite has been a state tree nursery since 1933, per the Hubbard County listSource: upload.wikimedia.org
  2. 1934 BuiltBuilt by the CCC and the Minnesota Division of Forestry to oversee an area of high fire danger; tower 61 on the county listSources: nhlr.org, centraluslookouts.weebly.com, upload.wikimedia.org
  3. No record between 1934 and 1979
  4. 1979 Last staffedStaffed until 1979, when air detection replaced itSource: nhlr.org
  5. No record between 1979 and 1995
  6. 1995 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered May 15, 1995 as US 120, MN 4Source: nhlr.org
  7. 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 Badoura Lookout Tower stands in Badoura State Forest, south of Akeley in Hubbard County, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources administers it.1,2 The tower sits on the grounds of a state tree nursery, which the county list says has been on the site since 1933.2,3

The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Minnesota Division of Forestry built the tower in 1934 to watch an area of high fire danger.1 A Forest Lookouts page gives the same year and describes a 100-foot steel tower.4

The sources disagree about who made it. The Register calls it a 100-foot Aermotor tower with a metal cab.1 The Hubbard County list calls it a 100-foot McClintock Marshall stairway tower and numbers it tower 61.2

The Register says the tower was staffed until 1979, when air detection replaced it.1

Today the Register says people from the nearby nursery still use the tower as a radio antenna and an emergency lookout.1 The county list notes that it is easy to see from Highway 64.2 We found no source that describes public climbing. Nursery staff use the tower,1 so the safest way to see it is from the road.

  1. Badoura Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mn/badoura-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Minnesota Fire Lookout Towers, Hubbard County, PDF on Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Hubbard_County_Towers.pdf (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Badoura State Forest, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badoura_State_Forest (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Badoura, Forest Lookouts (centraluslookouts.weebly.com), https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/badoura.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Badoura Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Badoura Lookout Tower
Photo: Tlkremer, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, 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. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: 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
  4. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, agency, access, 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.