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Fire lookout · Smith County, Mississippi

Clear Springs Lookout Tower

100 ft Aermotor MC-39 on the Bienville National Forest in Smith County, MS; last of eight towers built 1934-1940, Clear Springs built 1937-1939 per NHLR; still standing per the register.

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
Type unknown100-foot Aermotor MC-39The design: Aermotor MC-39
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1937
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
498 ft (152 m)
Agency
USFS, Bienville National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Smith County, Mississippi
Coordinates
32.14333, −89.34500
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ms-clear-springs

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 2.9 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. 1937 BuiltRegister gives a range, sometime between 1937 and 1939; 1937 is the earliest year of that rangeSource: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1937 and 2023
  3. 2023 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered July 9, 2023 as US 1739, MS 56; nominated by Jason JohnsSource: 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 Clear Springs Lookout Tower stands in Smith County, Mississippi, on the Bienville National Forest, at an elevation of 498 feet, or 152 meters.1 The National Historic Lookout Register lists it as US 1739 and MS 56, and it describes the tower as a 100-foot Aermotor MC-39.1 The register accepted the tower on July 9, 2023, on the nomination of Jason Johns.1

According to the register, the Bienville National Forest once had eight fire towers, raised in the years from 1934 to 1940.1 Clear Springs was the final one erected, dated to somewhere in the 1937 to 1939 span, and five of the eight stood on the former Strong River Ranger District, Clear Springs included.1 One other source complicates the timeline. Wikipedia gives June 15, 1936 as the date the forest was established, which is later than the register's 1934 start for the towers, and we could not settle the difference.1,2

We found no record of who staffed the tower or which fires it watched, and the register does not mention either.1 Per the register, only two of these towers survive today: Moore and Clear Springs.1 It also says the Shockaloo Tower was dismantled in 1940 and rebuilt further south in Scott County as the Moore Fire Tower.1 We found no record that Clear Springs was moved or taken down.

Bienville is a national forest in central Mississippi, and its local ranger district offices are in Forest, Mississippi.2 We found no public statement on whether the Clear Springs tower can be visited. Anyone interested should ask the Forest Service before going near it, and should not climb it.

  1. Clear Springs Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/clear-springs-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Bienville National Forest, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bienville_National_Forest (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Clear Springs Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Clear Springs Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Clear Springs Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Clear Springs Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Clear Springs Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Clear Springs 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, 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. 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

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