Fire lookout · Hubbard County, Minnesota
Frontenac Lake (Schoolcraft)
Also known as Schoolcraft Fire Tower
Hubbard County Aermotor tower above Frontenac Lake, erected by the CCC in 1936 and possibly moved from an earlier site; listed as standing, no access notes found.
- Standing
- Access unknown
- Verified
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
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerFour-legged steel Aermotor tower with a metal observation room and an octagonal cabThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1936
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Owner column reads Mn MFS; the expansion is not stated in the part of the booklet read
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Hubbard County, Minnesota
- Coordinates
- 47.35794, −94.98968
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mn-frontenac-lake-schoolcraft
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 3.6 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
- 1936 BuiltErected by the CCC at this site per the county booklet; the Minnesota lookout list also gives 1936. A 2010 Commons caption gives 1937 instead.Sources: upload.wikimedia.org, centraluslookouts.weebly.com
- 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.
This lookout stands above Frontenac Lake in Hubbard County, Minnesota. A Hubbard County tower booklet calls it the Schoolcraft tower and Fire Tower 45, and also the Frontenac Lake tower.1 Wikidata places it inside the Paul Bunyan State Forest.2
According to the booklet, the Civilian Conservation Corps erected this Aermotor tower at this site in 1936.1 The booklet's 1960 survey notes describe a four-legged steel structure with a metal observation room on top. Its entry also gives an octagonal cab.1
The booklet gives two heights. Its table column reads 81, while the 1960 note puts the overall height at 90 feet.1 The owner column reads "Mn MFS," and the part we read does not spell that abbreviation out.1
The booklet's entry also dates the tower to the 1920s, and says it was at a different site before being moved here.1 A caption on a Wikimedia Commons photo of the tower gives 1937 for the CCC erection and says it probably came from somewhere else.3 A Minnesota lookout list gives 1936 for the erection.4 We have used 1936, since the booklet and that list agree.1,4
We found no names of anyone who staffed the tower and no account of a fire it spotted.
The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as standing, under the name Frontenac Lake (Schoolcraft).5 We found no recent photograph, inspection or access notice, so its condition today is unclear. Ask whoever manages the site before going near it, and do not climb it.
- Hubbard County Fire Lookout Towers, tower booklet, Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Hubbard_County_Towers.pdf (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Schoolcraft Fire Tower, Wikidata, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q107506933 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- File:Schoolcraft Fire Tower.jpg, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schoolcraft_Fire_Tower.jpg (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Minnesota Lookouts, Central US Lookouts, https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/minnesota.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Minnesota Lookouts (Standing), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mn/mn-st/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) (opens another site) Gave us: photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, agency, 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
- Hubbard County Fire Lookout Towers (tower booklet) (Wikimedia Commons) (opens another site)
- File:Schoolcraft Fire Tower.jpg (Wikimedia Commons) (opens another site)
- Minnesota Lookouts (Central US Lookouts (Forest Lookouts)) (opens another site)
- Minnesota Lookouts (Standing) (Forest Fire Lookout Association) (opens another site)
- FFLA Minnesota lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Wikidata item Q107506933 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.