Fire lookout · Bertie County, North Carolina
Greens Cross
Gone: Civilian Conservation Corps steel lookout in Bertie County, built 1934; moved in 1962-64 and dismantled in 2010 for restoration and resale. Later location not found.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Dismantled in 2010 and moved for restoration and resale; no source gives where it stands now or what remains at either site
Visit & stay
Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.
Access
Access unknown
We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerAermotor MC-39The design: Aermotor MC-39
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1934
- Height
- 100 ft (30.4 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- North Carolina Division of Forest Resources
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Bertie County, North Carolina
- Coordinates
- 36.01750, −76.89138
- Registers
- NGS FX 3894
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-nc-greens-cross
View from the cab
What the lookout saw from its 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.
This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and its recorded height.
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
- 1934 BuiltCivilian Conservation Corps; 99-foot 9-inch steel tower with a 2-room cabin; Emergency Conservation Work program fundingSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1934 and 1962
- 1962 MovedLease expired and a new site was acquired; the 100-foot tower was moved (page dates this 1962-64)Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1962 and 2010
- 2010 RemovedDismantled and moved for restoration and resale; no later location givenSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.
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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Civilian Conservation Corps built the Greens Cross lookout in Bertie County in August 1934.1 The tower was a steel structure of 99 feet 9 inches with a two-room cabin, and the Emergency Conservation Work program paid for it.1 The North Carolina Division of Forest Resources is listed as the agency.1 The state's tower index also places the lookout in Bertie County.2
Between 1962 and 1964 the lease on the site expired, and the lookout was relocated to another site.1 Later entries on the same page give the height as 100 feet, three inches more than the 1934 figure, so the record gives two heights.1
In 2010 the 100-foot Aermotor MC-39 was taken down and moved so it could be restored and resold.1
Today, no source I could read describes what remains at the original Greens Cross site or at the later one. None says where the tower stands now, or whether it was ever restored.1
- Greens Cross, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/greens-cross.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- North Carolina Towers, tnlandforms.us, https://tnlandforms.us/nctowers.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- tnlandforms.us fire lookout towers (Tom Dunigan) -- GA, NC, TN (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, type, register numbers, links tnlandforms.us (Tom Dunigan) · No licence stated; facts only (coordinates, county, elevation, NGS/GFC/BLL register cross-references, status where given). · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) Gave us: what it is built of, design, height, status, agency, 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
- Greens Cross (tnlandforms.us (Tom Dunigan)) (opens another site)
- Greens Cross (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.