Fire lookout · Chickasaw County, Mississippi
Witch Dance (Chickasaw) Lookout Tower
Also known as Witch Dance Lookout Tower
100-foot Aermotor fire tower in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, on Tombigbee National Forest land; NHLR-registered 2022; build date unknown; bottom stair flight removed.
- 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 diagonal stairsThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 549 ft (167 m)
- Agency
- U.S. Forest Service (listed as USFS)
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Chickasaw County, Mississippi
- Coordinates
- 33.95956, −88.91766
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ms-witch-dance-chickasaw
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 3.2 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 July 10, 2022 as US 1675, MS 38; 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 Witch Dance (Chickasaw) Lookout Tower stands in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, in the Tombigbee National Forest.1 The register lists the U.S. Forest Service as the administrator and describes a 100-foot Aermotor tower with diagonal stairs, at an elevation of 549 feet (167 meters).1 It gives the build year as unknown, and we found no other source that dates the tower or names who built it.1
The tower shares its name with Witch Dance, a stop on the Natchez Trace Parkway.2 The National Park Service describes that stop as a place with picnic areas, trailheads, and miles of hiking and horseback trails.2 The Park Service page says the two trailheads near the horsetrail picnic area enter the Tombigbee National Forest, and that the Forest Service maintains the trails there.2
The register notes that the bottom flight of stairs has been removed, but it gives no date for that change.1 We found no record of who staffed the tower or whether it ever spotted a fire.
The sources we read do not say whether the tower is open to visitors today, so please do not try to climb it. If you want to see it, ask the Forest Service about access first.
- Witch Dance (Chickasaw) Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ms/witch-dance-chickasaw-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Witch Dance, Milepost 233.2, National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/places/witch-dance.htm (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, ownership, 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 1675 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Witch Dance, Milepost 233.2 (National Park Service) (opens another site)
- OpenStreetMap node 357997051 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.