Fire lookout · Lauderdale County, Mississippi
Lauderdale (Meridian) Lookout Tower
Also known as Meridian, Lauderdale Lookout Tower
Standing 80 ft Aermotor tower in Lauderdale County, MS, registered by NHLR in 2022; roof and windows were missing at the visit and the build date is unknown.
- 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.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower80 ft Aermotor tower with a straight internal stairThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 80 ft (24.4 m)
- Elevation
- 600 ft (183 m)
- Agency
- Mississippi Forestry Commission
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Lauderdale County, Mississippi
- Coordinates
- 32.36202, −88.63180
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ms-lauderdale-meridian
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 2.8 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
- 2022 Condition assessmentRegister site visit recorded 3 July 2022Source: nhlr.org
- 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on the National Historic Lookout Register 10 July 2022; nominated by Jason JohnsSource: 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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Lauderdale Lookout Tower stands in Lauderdale County, Mississippi, at about 600 feet above sea level.1 The National Historic Lookout Register files it under the name Lauderdale (Meridian), and an online lookout index lists it under Mississippi as Meridian.1,2
The register describes an 80-foot Aermotor tower with a straight stair inside it.1 Aermotor built its towers from galvanized steel.3 The register gives no build date.1 I could not find another source that gives one, and I found no record of who staffed the tower or which fires it watched.
The register's site visit took place on July 3, 2022, and the tower was registered on July 10, 2022, with Jason Johns as nominator.1
When the register visited, the tower was in poor condition: it lacked a roof and windows, and an antenna had been attached to its top.1 The same entry says the site was vacated by the Mississippi Forestry Commission, although it also lists the commission as the administering agency.1 I found no record of when the commission left or what has happened to the tower since.
A map database entry gives the site an elevation of 190 meters, about 7 meters above the register's figure.4 I found no current report on the tower's condition or on whether visitors may go near it. Check with the Forestry Commission before going to the site, and do not climb a tower that is missing its roof and windows.
- Lauderdale (Meridian) Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/lauderdale-meridian-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Meridian, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/meridian.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- The Aermotor Company: From Windmills to Forest Lookout Towers, Society for Industrial Archeology, https://www.sia-web.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Vol48_No4_Fall_2019_Web1.pdf (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Lauderdale Lookout Tower, OpenStreetMap, https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/357997157 (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) Gave us: 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
- OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures (opens another site) Gave us: type, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- 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
- NHLR register entry US 1665 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- The Aermotor Company: From Windmills to Forest Lookout Towers (Society for Industrial Archeology) (opens another site)
- Meridian (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
- OpenStreetMap node 357997157 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.