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Fire lookout · Noxubee County, Mississippi

Bluff Lake Lookout Tower

Noxubee County, MS: 120 ft Aermotor-type steel tower inside the Noxubee refuge; build date unknown; NHLR lists U.S. Fish & Wildlife as administrator and the Forestry Commission as cooperator; listed standing on 2023 imagery.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

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

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower120 ft steel tower with observation cab and diagonal stairway (Aermotor per NHLR)The design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
Unknown
Height
120 ft (36.6 m)
Elevation
253 ft (77 m)
Agency
U.S. Fish & Wildlife (administers, per NHLR); Mississippi Forestry Commission (cooperator, per NHLR)
Land
Federal land
Location
Noxubee County, Mississippi
Coordinates
33.27925, −88.79328
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ms-bluff-lake

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 3.1 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. 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered July 10, 2022 as US 1671, MS 34Source: nhlr.org
  2. 2023 Condition assessmentListed as standing on 2023 Google Earth imagerySource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  3. 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 Bluff Lake Lookout Tower stands in Noxubee County, Mississippi, inside the Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge.1 The National Historic Lookout Register describes it as a 120-foot Aermotor with a diagonal stairway.1 A National Geodetic Survey data sheet, reproduced on a Forest Lookouts page, describes a steel tower with an observation cab, 120 feet (36.6 meters) tall.2 The two descriptions agree on the height.1,2

The register lists the build date as unknown, so nobody appears to have recorded when it was built.1 It lists U.S. Fish & Wildlife as administering the tower, with the Mississippi Forestry Commission as a cooperator.1 The Fish and Wildlife Service also governs the refuge,3 but the pages I read do not say how the tower came to stand on refuge land or what the cooperator's role involves.1,2

I found no staffing or fire history in the pages I read.1,2 The data sheet places the tower near the refuge headquarters.2

The most recent condition note I found is a 2023 listing that marks the tower as standing on Google Earth imagery.2 That is satellite imagery, not an inspection.2

The register records a site visit on July 3, 2022, but says nothing about current access.1 Goose Overlook is a different structure, a 30-foot platform that looks out over Bluff Lake, and should not be confused with this tower.3

  1. Bluff Lake Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/bluff-lake-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Bluff Lake, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/bluff-lake.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_D._Hamilton_Noxubee_National_Wildlife_Refuge (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Bluff Lake Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Bluff Lake Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Bluff Lake Lookout Tower
Photo: 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, 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 -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: type, links easternuslookouts.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.