FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Cass County, Minnesota

Spider Lake

Cass County tower erected 1928 as Fire Tower 52 in Foot Hills State Forest; listed as gone; sources disagree on its height and structure.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as gone by the Forest Fire Lookout Association; no source describes what remains at the site

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
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor ladder tower (1928 record); a 1981 survey describes a steel truss towerThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1928
Height
81 ft (24.7 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Minnesota Forest Service
Land
Unknown
Location
Cass County, Minnesota
Coordinates
46.69250, −94.64431
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mn-spider-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 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. 1928 BuiltErected 1928 as tower 52, an 81-foot Aermotor ladder tower; a December 1928 newspaper report says an 81-foot tower was placed on Spider LakeSources: centraluslookouts.weebly.com, upload.wikimedia.org
  2. No record between 1928 and 1981
  3. 1981 Condition assessmentSurvey note describes a steel truss structure about 100 feet high with a steel cabin on topSource: upload.wikimedia.org
  4. 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 (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Spider Lake fire tower stood in Cass County, in the southern area of Foot Hills State Forest.1 The county list gives it the number 52.1

The tower went up in 1928.1 A Brainerd Daily Dispatch report dated December 29, 1928, quoted by Forest Lookouts, says an 81-foot tower was set up at Spider Lake, west of Pine River.2 The county list calls it an 81-foot Aermotor ladder tower erected that year, and gives the owner as the Minnesota Forest Service.1

The sources do not agree on the structure. A 1981 survey note in the county list describes a steel truss tower, about 100 feet high, with a steel cabin on top.1 The list does not say whether the tower was rebuilt, or whether that survey describes the same structure as the 1928 tower.1

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as gone.3 We found no source that describes what remains at the site, or whether the public can reach it.

  1. Minnesota Fire Lookout Towers: Cass County (PDF), Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Cass_County_Towers.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Spider Lake, Forest Lookouts, https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/spider-lake.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Minnesota Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mn/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

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: height, agency, 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. 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

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