Fire lookout · Saint Louis County, Minnesota
Mirror Lake
1933 Minnesota Forest Service steel tower; 2003 county note says its cab was removed and it was used as an ARMER radio site. FFLA lists it gone. No source describes the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. FFLA lists it gone, but the St. Louis County list's 2003 note says it was in use as a communications site with the cab removed
Visit & stay
Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.
Access
Access unknown
We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower100-foot steel stairway tower; the county list names Aermotor and a square cab (cab later removed)The design: Aermotor
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1933
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Minnesota Forest Service
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Saint Louis County, Minnesota
- Coordinates
- 46.97479, −92.17657
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mn-mirror-lake
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 3.6 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
- 1933 Builtdated 1933 with the Minnesota Forest Service as owner (builder not stated); number 102 on the St. Louis County listSource: upload.wikimedia.org
- No record between 1933 and 2003
- 2003 Alteredcab removed and the tower in use as an ARMER site, per a 2003 note on the county list; the state dates first ARMER build to 2004, so the date needs checkingSources: upload.wikimedia.org, dps.mn.gov
- 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.
The county list names the Minnesota Forest Service as owner of the Mirror Lake tower, dated 1933.1 It lists the tower at 100 feet, of stairway type, and names Aermotor and a square cab.1
Survey notes from 1952 give a height of about 100 feet, describe the structure as steel, and mention a lookout cabin at the top.1
A note on the county list, dated 2003, says the cab had been removed and the tower was in use as an ARMER site. ARMER is the Allied Radio Matrix for Emergency Response. The state dates its first build to 2004, a year after that note, so the note's date or wording needs checking.1,2 The state also says ARMER now serves as the main communications tool for most state, county and local public safety entities in Minnesota.2
The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the Mirror Lake tower as gone.3 Its key marks towers that keep their support with the cab removed as Standing, and the 2003 county note describes a tower with its cab removed that was still in use.3,1
No source we read says whether the steel still stands at the Mirror Lake site today, or whether the public can reach it.
- St. Louis County Minnesota Fire Lookout Towers, Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/St_Louis_County_Towers.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Allied Radio Matrix for Emergency Response (ARMER), Minnesota Department of Public Safety, https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/hsem/networks/armer (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Minnesota Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mn/ (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, 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
- St. Louis County Minnesota Fire Lookout Towers (Wikimedia Commons) (opens another site)
- Allied Radio Matrix for Emergency Response (ARMER) (Minnesota Department of Public Safety) (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.