Fire lookout · Oktibbeha County, Mississippi
Oktibbeha Lookout Tower
Oktibbeha County 100-ft Aermotor run by the Mississippi Forestry Commission; NHLR-registered 2022 with no build date; a 2020 newspaper describes two county towers without saying which is which.
- 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 tower100 ft Aermotor tower with a diagonal staircaseThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 304 ft (93 m)
- Agency
- Mississippi Forestry Commission
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Oktibbeha County, Mississippi
- Coordinates
- 33.42125, −88.89057
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ms-oktibbeha
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
- 2022 Condition assessmentNHLR site visit 7/3/22 describes the site as an active MFC locationSource: nhlr.org
- 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered July 10, 2022 as US 1672, MS 35; 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Oktibbeha Lookout Tower is in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, and the Mississippi Forestry Commission administers it.1 The National Historic Lookout Register describes a 100-foot Aermotor tower with a diagonal staircase, and it gives no build date.1 We found no other source that dates the tower.
Towers like this one were part of how the state spotted wildfires. People posted at the top watched for smoke, and when two towers saw the same blaze, they gave exact coordinates to authorities, who sent crews to put it out.2 Bill Kitchens, an outreach forester with the Forestry Commission, estimated that the agency began phasing out its fire towers in the late 1980s.2 Most wildfires are now found by aircraft and by calls to the agency's hotline.2
The sources we read do not name anyone who staffed this tower.
A January 2020 newspaper account says two towers were still standing in the county.2 One is on Maben-Sturgis Road, and the Oktibbeha County fire coordinator, Kirk Rosenhan, said it "has just been sitting there." The other, on Highway 12 southwest of Starkville, is being used as a radio tower.2 The article does not say which of those two, if either, is the register's tower.2
The register records a site visit on July 3, 2022, and says the site "appears to be an active MFC location."1 That is hard to square with the 2020 account of an idle tower, unless the two sources describe different structures. The register lists it as US 1672 and says it was registered on July 10, 2022, on the nomination of Jason Johns.1 It lists a separate Maben Lookout Tower in the county, registered the same day.3
We found no public access information for this site. The Forestry Commission has pulled the steps off some of its towers across the state to deter climbing.2 Do not climb this one, and ask the agency before going near it.
- Oktibbeha Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/oktibbeha-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Area fire towers hold sentimental value long after falling out of use, The Commercial Dispatch (archived copy), https://web.archive.org/web/2016/http://cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=78483 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Maben Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/maben-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, 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 1672 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Area fire towers hold sentimental value long after falling out of use (The Commercial Dispatch (archived copy; original URL returns 410 Gone)) (opens another site)
- Maben Lookout Tower (National Historic Lookout Register) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.