Fire lookout · Clay County, Mississippi
Clay Lookout Tower
100 ft Aermotor tower in Clay County, MS, registered by NHLR in 2022 as US 1674. No build date, staffing or fire history found; a 2020 state list conflicts with the register's private-property note.
- Status unknown
- Private land
- Verified
Private land
No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. NHLR describes the tower as on private property. A 2020 state list shows a Clay County Tower under the Forestry Commission, which we could not confirm is this structure.
Status unknown: We do not know yet whether it still stands.
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Private land. See the warning at the top of this page.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- sources disagree
- Type
- Cab on a tower100-foot AermotorThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 529 ft (161 m)
- Agency
- Mississippi Forestry Commission
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Clay County, Mississippi
- Coordinates
- 33.75275, −88.87795
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ms-clay
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
- 2020 EventListed as Clay County Tower under Forestry Commission, State, in a Secretary of State public lands list dated July 29, 2020. Identity with this tower unconfirmed.Source: sos.ms.gov
- 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered July 10, 2022 as US 1674, MS 37; nominated by Jason JohnsSource: nhlr.org
- TodayStatus unknownWe do not know whether it still stands.
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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Clay Lookout Tower is a 100-foot Aermotor tower in Clay County, Mississippi, at an elevation of 529 feet, or 161 meters.1 The National Historic Lookout Register lists it as US 1674 and MS 37, and it accepted the tower on July 10, 2022, on the nomination of Jason Johns.1
We could not find when the tower was built. The register lists the build date as unknown.1 It names the Mississippi Forestry Commission as the agency that administers the tower.1 We also found no record of who staffed the tower or which fires it helped watch.
The register describes the tower as being on private property.1 A state list of public lands dated July 29, 2020, however, includes a "Clay County Tower" under the Forestry Commission.2 We could not confirm whether that entry is this same structure, or whether the land has changed hands since 2020. The two sources do not agree, and we have left that question open.
Because the register places the tower on private land, we would not assume the public can visit it. Anyone curious about it should ask the Forestry Commission about its current status, and should not climb it or go onto private ground without permission.
- Clay Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/clay-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Public Lands by Agency and by Location, Mississippi Secretary of State, https://www.sos.ms.gov/content/documents/lands/Public%20Lands%20by%20Agency%20by%20Location.pdf (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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Where sources disagree
We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.
Sources disagree on whether it still stands.
- Firefinder research: Status unknown
- NHLR: Standing
Research (2026-10-09) gives unknown where the source records give standing. The page shows the researched status; please tell us if it is wrong.
Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, 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
- NHLR register entry US 1674 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Public Lands by Agency and by Location (Mississippi Secretary of State) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.