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Fire lookout · Pulaski County, Missouri

Fairview Fire Tower

Pulaski County, MO 100-foot steel tower in Mark Twain National Forest, allegedly built 1937; register says closed after vandalism; sources are thin.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. Register says the site is closed after vandalism, per a sign at the site; the closure date is not given

Visit & stay

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

Access

Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
Reached by a short gravel road into a small grassy clearing; the site is fenced with barbed wire and closed. Do not climb.
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower100-foot steel tower, possibly an Aermotor MC-39The design: Aermotor MC-39
Built of
Steel
Built
1937
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
1,281 ft (390 m)
Agency
US Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Pulaski County, Missouri
Coordinates
37.68763, −92.27641
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mo-fairview

View from the cab

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History

Then and now

  1. 1937 BuiltRegister says the tower was allegedly erected in 1937 as a steel tower (possibly an Aermotor MC-39 from 1934); Forest Lookouts gives 1937 as a 100-foot steel towerSources: nhlr.org, centraluslookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1937 and 2026
  3. 2026 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered August 13, 2026; nominated by Audrey LaBeaumeSource: nhlr.org
  4. 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 Fairview Fire Tower stands in Pulaski County, in a clearing beside Highway 17 inside the Mark Twain National Forest.1 The US Forest Service administers it, and the register lists the Houston/Rolla/Cedar Creek Ranger District as a cooperator.1

The record of its building is thin. The register gives 1937 as the reported build year for a steel tower, which it says could be an Aermotor MC-39 from 1934.1 The Forest Lookouts site describes a 100-foot steel structure and dates it to 1937.2 The register says sources on the tower are very scarce, and we found no record of who staffed it or of any fire it watched.1,2

The tower is now closed. A sign on site gives vandalism as the reason, the register says, and the grounds are watched and ringed with barbed-wire fencing.1 We found no date for the closure.1

The register's description calls the cab fairly small and the tower sound, with most windows still in place and stairs that appear to have been recently replaced.1 It was added to the National Historic Lookout Register on August 13, 2026, on the nomination of Audrey LaBeaume.1 Because the tower is closed, please do not climb it.

  1. Fairview Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mo/fairview-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Fairview, Forest Lookouts, https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/fairview1.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Fairview Fire Tower
Fairview Fire TowerPhoto: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, what it is built of, status, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: height 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, 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

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