Fire lookout · Marshall County, Mississippi
Red Banks/Mahon Lookout Tower
Also known as Red Banks
Marshall County, MS 100 ft Aermotor beside I-22, NHLR-registered 2022 as US 1603; no build date; a local Facebook post suggests it may have been torn down, which the register does not match.
- 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 towerThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 572 ft (174 m)
- Agency
- Mississippi Forestry Commission
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Marshall County, Mississippi
- Coordinates
- 34.81555, −89.52944
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ms-red-banks-mahon
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
- 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered June 19, 2022 as US 1603, MS 8Source: 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 register calls this the Red Banks/Mahon Lookout Tower.1 It sits in Marshall County, Mississippi, the county where the community of Red Banks is found.1,2 It is a 100-foot Aermotor tower near the busy I-22 interstate in north Mississippi.1 The register gives no build date.1
The register says the site once held a house and workshop for the Marshall County forester.1 We found no list of towermen and no record of fires this tower watched.1
When the register's author visited, the house on the site appeared to be under renovation by a private individual.1 The register describes the tower as standing, but gives no date for that visit.1 A post in a Facebook group about Holly Springs, Mississippi, asks for old photos of the Red Banks fire lookout towers from before someone tore one down.3 If the post means this tower, it conflicts with the register's description.1,3 We could not settle the question from the sources we could read.1,3
The register names the Mississippi Forestry Commission as the agency in charge, but it does not say whether the public may visit.1 We found no information about access or rental.1 Please do not climb or enter the tower or the house without permission from whoever controls the site.1
- Red Banks/Mahon Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/red-banksmahon-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Red Banks, Mississippi, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Banks,_Mississippi (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Facebook group post asking for old photos of the Red Banks fire lookout towers, The REAL Holly Springs Mississippi, https://www.facebook.com/groups/360859341242554/permalink/2007399459921859/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.
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: type, 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
- 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 1603 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Facebook group post asking for old photos of the Red Banks fire lookout towers (Facebook (group: The REAL Holly Springs Mississippi)) (opens another site)
- Red Banks, Mississippi (Wikipedia) (opens another site)
- Red Banks (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.