FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Panola County, Mississippi

Crenshaw Lookout Tower

100 ft Aermotor on the Sanders family's private land near Crenshaw, Panola County, MS; bought from the MFC in 1991; NHLR-registered June 2022. No build date found.

Private land

No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. Register lists the location as private property; no public access is described.

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
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower100-foot Aermotor (register's description)The design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
Unknown
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
362 ft (110 m)
Agency
Sanders family (private owners, per the register's 'Administered by' field); bought from the Mississippi Forestry Commission in 1991
Land
Unknown
Location
Panola County, Mississippi
Coordinates
34.53027, −90.18694
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ms-crenshaw

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 3.0 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. 1991 RemovedBought from the Mississippi Forestry Commission for $105.05 by the Sanders family; the register says it first stood a few miles southeast of the present site. The year it was moved is not given.Source: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1991 and 2022
  3. 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered June 19, 2022 as US 1604, MS 9; 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 Crenshaw Lookout Tower is a 100-foot Aermotor tower on the Sanders family's property outside Crenshaw, in Panola County, Mississippi.1 The register puts its site at about 362 feet, or 110 meters.1 It gives no build date, and we found none in the other sources we read.1

Aermotor, the maker the register names, also made fire lookout towers from galvanized steel.2 Wikipedia says hundreds of one 7-by-7 model were used in the southeastern United States, but the register does not say whether this tower is that model.2,1

The tower did not begin on this land. Before it came here, the tower stood some miles to the southeast, the register notes.1 In 1991 the Sanders family bought it from the Mississippi Forestry Commission for $105.05.1 That state agency was created in 1926 and was authorized to prevent, control and extinguish forest fires.3 At first the family considered reselling the tower as scrap, but decided instead to put it up on their own property.1 The register also says the original footings were reused at the new site.1

The National Historic Lookout Register listed it as US 1604, MS 9 on June 19, 2022, on the nomination of Jason Johns.1

The register lists the location as private property.1 It describes no public access, and it does not say who has staffed the tower or which fires it watched.1 Anyone interested should ask the family before going near it, and should not climb it.

  1. Crenshaw Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/crenshaw-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Aermotor Windmill Company, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aermotor_Windmill_Company (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Mississippi Forestry Commission, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Forestry_Commission (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Crenshaw Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Crenshaw Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Crenshaw 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, 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
  2. 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.