Fire lookout · Kemper County, Mississippi
Kemper (De Kalb) Lookout Tower
A 100-foot Aermotor lookout in Kemper County, registered in 2022; the lower stair treads have been removed and the register says the MFC no longer uses the site.
- Standing
- Access unknown
- Verified
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. The register notes the treads are removed from the bottom two flights of the internal staircase. No source says whether the site is open to visitors.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerAermotorThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 457 ft (139 m)
- Agency
- Mississippi Forestry Commission
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Kemper County, Mississippi
- Coordinates
- 32.74750, −88.65388
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ms-kemper-de-kalb
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.
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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.
History
Then and now
- 2022 Condition assessmentSite visit noted as 7/3/22: treads removed from the bottom two flights of the internal staircase.Source: nhlr.org
- 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered July 10, 2022 as US 1667, MS 31, nominated by Jason Johns.Source: nhlr.org
- 2022 EventThe register says the MFC no longer uses the site; the date of that change is not given.Source: nhlr.org
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The National Historic Lookout Register lists the Kemper (De Kalb) Lookout Tower in Kemper County as a 100-foot Aermotor with a diagonal staircase inside.1 It gives no build date and names the Mississippi Forestry Commission as the administering agency.1
The most recent account we found is the register's site visit note, dated July 3, 2022.1 That note says the lowest two flights of the inside staircase have lost their treads. We read that as meaning the stair cannot be used as it stands.1 The same note says the Forestry Commission no longer uses the site.1
We found no other source for this tower. Nothing we read says when it was built, who last staffed it, or whether it will ever be opened again.1 The register entry was made on July 10, 2022, nominated by Jason Johns.1
Access is not recorded in anything we looked at. Because the lower stairs have no treads, do not try to climb it, and check with the Forestry Commission before going near it.1
- Kemper (De Kalb) Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/kemper-de-kalb-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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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
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.