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Fire lookout · Howell County, Missouri

Mountain View Fire Tower

1949 Missouri Department of Conservation 100-foot Aermotor fire tower near Mountain View, Howell County; MDC still uses it to spot wildfires; NHLR-registered 2013.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. The 26.8-acre grounds are open to the public, but the tower is a working MDC lookout. No source read says the public may climb it.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
From Mountain View: Highway 60 west 1.5 miles, County Road 2990 north 0.5 mile, then County Road 3400 west 0.25 mile to the towersite grounds.
Staffing
Staffed during fire season (as of undated MDC page)

Facts

Status
Standing sources disagree
Type
Cab on a tower100-foot Aermotor tower with a 7-by-7-foot cabThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1949
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
1,336 ft (407 m)
Agency
Missouri Department of Conservation
Land
State land
Location
Howell County, Missouri
Coordinates
36.99370, −91.75803
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mo-mountain-view

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 3.2 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

  1. 1947 EventTowersite acquired in fiscal 1947-48: 80 acres, per Commission annual reportSource: centraluslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1949 BuiltBuilt by the Missouri Department of Conservation in 1949, per the registerSource: nhlr.org
  3. 1959 StaffedA Commission towerman lived at the tower with his family, per a May 1959 newspaper reportSource: centraluslookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1959 and 2013
  5. 2013 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered September 1, 2013 as US 973, MO 3Source: nhlr.org
  6. 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 Mountain View Fire Tower stands in Howell County, near the Arkansas border.1 The Missouri Department of Conservation built it in 1949, and the register describes a 100-foot Aermotor tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab.1 An MDC history article says most of the state's fire towers stood 100 feet tall and came from the Aermotor Company of Chicago.2

The land came first. A Missouri Conservation Commission annual report for 1947 to 1948 records an 80-acre towersite acquired, and a 1949 to 1950 state manual lists the same site as 80 acres owned by the Commission.3 MDC's current page gives the towersite as 26.8 acres.4 The sources read do not explain the change.

The tower was a working post. An MDC history article says that in 1966 the department operated 102 fire towers, and that for decades these towers were the most effective way to spot fires.2 In May 1959 a Commission towerman who lived at the tower with his family was apparently killed in a two-vehicle crash on Highway 60 near Montier, according to a Gasconade County newspaper report.3

The register dates the tower's listing to September 1, 2013.1 The sources read do not describe the tower being moved, burned or taken down.

MDC's towersite page says the grounds are open to visitors, but the site's main job is to host the Mtn View tower, which MDC staff use to spot wildfires in this part of the county.4 Directions from Mountain View run west on Highway 60 for 1.5 miles, then north on County Road 2990 and west on County Road 3400.4 No source read says the public may climb the tower, and it is still a working lookout, so keep to the grounds and check with MDC before visiting.4

  1. Mountain View Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mo/mountain-view-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Shooting the Smoke, Missouri Conservationist, July 2022, https://mdc.mo.gov/magazines/missouri-conservationist/2022-07/shooting-smoke (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Mountain View, Forest Lookouts (annual reports and newspaper clippings transcribed), https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/mountain-view.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Mountain View Towersite, Missouri Department of Conservation, https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/places/mountain-view-towersite (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Mountain View Fire Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Where sources disagree

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  • Sources disagree on whether it still stands.

    • NHLR: Standing
    • FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com): Gone

    NHLR lists lookouts that were standing when registered.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, status, register numbers, agency, 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: type, ownership, 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, access, staffing, 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.