Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Minnesota
Sugarbush
Clearwater County Aermotor tower built 1937, also called Rice Lake Lookout Tower; county list says removed, FFLA says gone; sources give its height as 80 and 90 feet.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. County list says removed and the Forest Fire Lookout Association lists it as gone; 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
- Type
- Cab on a towerAermotor tower; a 1941 survey note describes steel construction with an enclosed crow's nestThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1937
- Height
- 80 ft (24.4 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Minnesota Forest Service
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Clearwater County, Minnesota
- Coordinates
- 47.35359, −95.41812
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mn-sugarbush
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 4.2 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
- 1937 BuiltAermotor tower erected 1937, 80 feet tall with an external ladderSources: centraluslookouts.weebly.com, upload.wikimedia.org
- 1941 Condition assessmentSurvey note: steel construction with an enclosed crow's nestSource: upload.wikimedia.org
- No record between 1941 and 1960
- 1960 Condition assessmentSurvey note gives the overall height as 90 feetSource: 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.
Sugarbush was a fire tower in Clearwater County.1 The county list also calls it the Rice Lake Lookout Tower.1
Forest Lookouts dates the tower to 1937 and gives its height as 80 feet, with an external ladder.2 The county list agrees on the date and height, and gives the owner as the Minnesota Forest Service.1
A 1941 survey note describes the tower as steel, with an enclosed crow's nest.1 A 1960 note in the county list gives its overall height as 90 feet, which does not match the 80 feet given for the 1937 build.1 The sources do not explain the difference.
The county list says the tower was removed.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists it as gone.3 We found no source that describes what remains at the site, or whether the public can visit it.
- Minnesota Fire Lookout Towers: Clearwater County (PDF), Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Clearwater_County_Towers.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Sugarbush, Forest Lookouts, https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/sugarbush.html (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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) Gave us: what it is built of, design, 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
- 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
- Minnesota Fire Lookout Towers: Clearwater County (PDF) (Wikimedia Commons) (opens another site)
- FFLA Minnesota lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Sugarbush (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.