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Fire lookout · Pine County, Minnesota

St. Croix

Also known as St. Croix State Park Fire Tower

100-foot steel tower (Aermotor per one source) in St. Croix State Park, Pine County, MN; built 1936 or 1937 by the CCC, staffed until 1981, listed as standing and open to climb.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. Open to park visitors to climb; the state's fire towers are usually open but closed November 1 through May 31, per a Savage Pacer column

Can you climb it?
Yes
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower100-foot steel tower with cross-bracing; Aermotor maker per one source (Forest Lookouts)The design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1936
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Land
Unknown
Location
Pine County, Minnesota
Coordinates
45.94957, −92.72702
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mn-st-croix

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 3.7 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. 1936 BuiltForest Lookouts and a Savage Pacer column say 1936; the NRHP nomination gives 1936-37; the DNR page and Wikipedia say 1937Sources: centraluslookouts.weebly.com, swnewsmedia.com, npgallery.nps.gov
  2. 1948 StaffedNewspaper item quoted by Forest Lookouts names a woman employed at the fire towerSource: centraluslookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1948 and 1981
  4. 1981 Last staffedStaffing ended when aerial surveys became the standardSource: dnr.state.mn.us
  5. 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.

The St. Croix fire tower stands in St. Croix State Park in Pine County, Minnesota.1,2 The National Register nomination for the park's CCC and WPA historic resources describes it as a standard 100-foot steel tower, braced with crossing members, and lists it among the historic district's features.3 One source calls it a 100-foot Aermotor tower.4

Sources differ on the year it went up. The Forest Lookouts page and a Savage Pacer column say 1936,4,5 while the state park and Wikipedia say 1937.2,6 The nomination gives 1936 to 1937.3 The Civilian Conservation Corps built it, according to the park and Wikipedia.2,6

A 1948 newspaper item quoted on the Forest Lookouts page names a woman employed at the tower, and it mentions several bad fires that week.4 The park says watchmen spent hours at a time in the tower scanning for fires without breaks, until staffing ended in 1981 and aerial surveys became the norm.2

Today the Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as standing.1 The park says visitors may climb it.2 A Savage Pacer column notes that the state's fire towers are usually open to the public but closed from November 1 through May 31, and it advises checking ahead before you go.5

  1. Minnesota lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mn/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. St. Croix State Park, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/virtual_tour/st_croix/dialup.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. St. Croix State Park CCC/WPA/Rustic Style Historic Resources, National Register of Historic Places nomination, National Park Service, https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/4415e001-200e-41d3-a41a-6d404ddeeb83/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. St. Croix, Forest Lookouts, https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/st-croix.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Commentary: Fire towers provide a different view of Minnesota, Savage Pacer, https://swnewsmedia.com/savage_pacer/news/opinion/guest_columns/commentary-fire-towers-provide-a-different-view-of-minnesota/article_275d8fa5-b46f-5ee8-9ee6-4d85b4861308.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  6. Saint Croix State Park, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Croix_State_Park (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of St. Croix
Photo: Tlkremer, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: dates, photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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

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