Fire lookout · Hinds County, Mississippi
Skates Lookout Tower
Hinds County, MS 100-foot Aermotor registered by NHLR in 2022 as US 1657; a July 2022 visit found the stairs intact, but the Forestry Commission had vacated the site and no build date was found.
- 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' Aermotor with a straight internal staircaseThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 339 ft (103 m)
- Agency
- Mississippi Forestry Commission
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Hinds County, Mississippi
- Coordinates
- 32.19496, −90.62684
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ms-skates
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
- 2022 Condition assessmentRegister site visit dated 7/9/22: all flights intact; the MFC has vacated the site and it is extremely overgrownSource: nhlr.org
- 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered July 10, 2022 as US 1657, MS 23; 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 Skates Lookout Tower is in Hinds County, Mississippi, at about 339 feet (103 meters) above sea level.1 The National Historic Lookout Register describes it as a 100-foot Aermotor with a straight internal staircase.1 The Register lists the Mississippi Forestry Commission as the agency that administered it.1
We found no build date and no builder. The Register gives the build details as unknown, and our two web searches turned up nothing more about its construction.1 We also found no record of who staffed the tower or of any fire it watched.
The National Historic Lookout Register added the tower on July 10, 2022, as US 1657 (MS 23), on the nomination of Jason Johns.1 The entry is based on a site visit dated July 9, 2022, when every flight of the staircase was still intact.1
The same entry says the Forestry Commission had vacated the site and that it had become extremely overgrown.1 It does not say when the agency left. We could not find a later report, so we cannot confirm the tower's condition today. The 2022 visit is the only evidence of its condition, and it is over four years old.1
The Register page does not describe public access.1 Anyone interested should check with the landowner or the Forestry Commission first, and should not climb a tower without permission.
- Skates Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/skates-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, 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
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.