FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Carlton County, Minnesota

Cloquet Forest Station

Also known as Cloquet

Carlton County, MN tower, 80-ft Aermotor erected 1931 and owned by UMN; 2018 fence and stair-safety review; FFLA lists it standing; no staffing record found.

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 forest is open to the public in daylight, but the recreation page does not mention the tower. A 2018 report says the fence door was unlocked for visitor access while the stairs and railings were under safety review. No current tower policy found.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Forest roads and trails are open to on-trail, non-motorized recreation during daylight; off-trail recreation is prohibited
Staffing
Unknown (as of 2026-10-09)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor tower, 80 ftThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1931
Height
80 ft (24.4 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
University of Minnesota (owner, per 2018 report); Cloquet Forestry Center
Land
Unknown
Location
Carlton County, Minnesota
Coordinates
46.68873, −92.52689
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mn-cloquet-forest

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 4.1 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 Built80-foot Aermotor tower erected in 1931 per the Forest Lookouts page; no builder or purpose namedSource: centraluslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1935 EventNovember 1935 CCC newsletter item: a crew finished setting telephone poles between a camp and the Cloquet lookoutSource: centraluslookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1935 and 2018
  4. 2018 Condition assessmentSafety assessment of the tower's stairs and railings underway; report pending in the 2018 chapter report. Results not foundSource: firelookout.org
  5. 2018 AlteredSeptember 2018: new 6 ft chain-link fence with a 4 ft door installed at the base, replacing the damaged old fenceSource: firelookout.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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Cloquet Forest Station is a tower in Carlton County, Minnesota, and the University of Minnesota owns it.1,2 The Forest Lookouts page dates the tower to 1931 and describes it as an 80-foot Aermotor.3 The sources we read do not say why it was put up, who built it, or who first watched from it.

A November 1935 Civilian Conservation Corps newsletter item, quoted on the same page, describes a crew that finished setting telephone poles between a camp and the Cloquet lookout.3 We found no staffing history for the tower and no notable fire tied to it in the sources we read.

In September 2018 the tower's base got a new six-foot chain-link fence with a four-foot door, replacing an old fence that had been badly damaged.2 The same report said a safety assessment of the tower's stairs and railings was underway and that its findings were expected soon.2 The report also said that once the assessment was complete, a list of next steps would be drawn up to keep the tower available for education and research.2 We did not find that assessment's results.

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as standing.1 We found no later condition report, so we cannot say what its stairs and railings look like today.

The forest is open to the public during daylight hours, and its roads and trails are open to on-trail, non-motorized recreation.4 The forest's recreation page does not mention the tower. In 2018 the fence door was latched but unlocked to allow visitor access.2 Because the tower's safety review was open at that time, check with the Cloquet Forestry Center before you climb it.

  1. Minnesota Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mn/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Minnesota Chapter Report 2018, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/cr-mn-2018.pdf (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Cloquet, Forest Lookouts, https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/cloquet.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Recreation, Cloquet Forestry Center, University of Minnesota, https://cfc.cfans.umn.edu/forests-facilities/recreation (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Cloquet Forest Station
Photo: Tlkremer, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

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Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: what it is built of, design, 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
  3. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · 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, 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

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