Fire lookout · Koochiching County, Minnesota
Gemmell
Koochiching County tower 82, a 94-ft ladder tower erected in 1930 and later removed; its old rail-line site is now the Blue Ox Trail.
- Gone
- Open to the public
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The county survey says the tower was removed, with no year given; the Forest Fire Lookout Association lists it as gone
Visit & stay
Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.
Access
Open to the public. The Blue Ox Trail runs along the old rail line and is open to ATVs in summer and snowmobiles in winter. No source describes what remains at the tower site
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Trail
- The tower is gone. The Blue Ox Trail follows the old rail grade and is open to ATVs in summer and snowmobiles in winter
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower94-ft ladder tower, possibly an AermotorThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1930
- Height
- 94 ft (28.7 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Minnesota Forest Service (owner listed as Mn MFS)
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Koochiching County, Minnesota
- Coordinates
- 47.97246, −94.12805
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mn-gemmell
View from the cab
What the lookout saw from its 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.
This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and its recorded height.
Downloads about 3.9 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
- 1930 BuiltTower number 82 erected in 1930, in the hamlet of Gemmell along the old rail lineSource: upload.wikimedia.org
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.
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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Gemmell was a fire lookout tower in Koochiching County, Minnesota.1 The county's survey of its towers lists it as tower number 82, erected in 1930.1 It was a 94-foot ladder tower, possibly an Aermotor design.1
The tower stood in the hamlet of Gemmell, beside an old rail line between Bemidji and International Falls.1 The survey lists the owner as "Mn MFS," which it explains as the Minnesota Forest Service, now the Forestry Division of the state Department of Natural Resources.1
The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as gone.2 The county survey says it was removed.1
The old rail line is now the Blue Ox Trail, which follows the old rail grade south from International Falls through Northome.1,3 Koochiching County gave the trail, and the Northome Ridge Riders look after it.3 The state's trail page calls it an unpaved route for snowmobiles and off-road vehicles that runs northeast to International Falls.4 The trail is open to ATVs in summer and to snowmobiles in winter.3
No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the tower site.
- Koochiching County Minnesota Fire Lookout Towers, Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Koochiching_County_Towers.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Minnesota Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mn/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Blue Ox Trail, IFalls.guide, https://ifalls.news/blue-ox-trail/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Paul Bunyan State Trail, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state-trails/paul-bunyan/index.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, 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
- Koochiching County Minnesota Fire Lookout Towers (Wikimedia Commons) (opens another site)
- Blue Ox Trail (IFalls.guide) (opens another site)
- Paul Bunyan State Trail (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources) (opens another site)
- FFLA Minnesota lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.