Fire lookout · Webster County, Mississippi
Webster Lookout Tower
100-foot Aermotor fire tower in Webster County, Mississippi; NHLR-registered 2022; no longer used by the MFC; build date 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 tower100-foot 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
- 559 ft (170 m)
- Agency
- Mississippi Forestry Commission
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Webster County, Mississippi
- Coordinates
- 33.66605, −89.18537
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ms-webster
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 assessmentNHLR site visit (entry dated 2/5/22) records the site as no longer used by the MFC; the visit date is read as February 5, 2022Source: nhlr.org
- 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered July 21, 2022 as US 1688, MS 48; 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 Webster Lookout Tower stands in Webster County, Mississippi, and the register lists the Mississippi Forestry Commission (MFC) as its administrator.1 The register describes a 100-foot Aermotor tower with a diagonal staircase, at an elevation of 559 feet (170 meters).1 It gives no build date. The entry lists the build year as unknown, and we found no other source that dates the tower.1
Before technology took over, fire towers were the main way to pin down where a forest fire was burning.2 Observers in the cabins at the top of each tower kept watch for smoke. When two towers sighted the same blaze, they passed its position to officials.2 In 2020, an MFC outreach forester estimated that the agency began winding down its reliance on fire towers in the late 1980s, and said it still retains many of them across the state.2 That is general context for the state, not a record of this tower. The sources we read do not say who watched from this tower or which fires, if any, it spotted.
The register names Jason Johns as the nominator and records the tower's registration on July 21, 2022, as US 1688, MS 48.1 The entry records a site visit dated 2/5/22 and notes that the MFC has stopped using the site.1 The register does not say when the agency stopped using the tower, what happened to the site afterward, or whether it is open to visitors today. Ask the MFC before going out to the site, and do not climb the tower.
- Webster Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/webster-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Area fire towers hold sentimental value long after falling out of use, The Dispatch, https://cdispatch.com/news/area-fire-towers-hold-sentimental-value-long-after-falling-out-of-use/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
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
- 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 1688 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Area fire towers hold sentimental value long after falling out of use (The Dispatch) (opens another site)
- OpenStreetMap node 357997305 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.