Fire lookout · Warren County, North Carolina
Warren County Lookout
A 1932 Aermotor fire tower near Liberia, NC, where Bessie Haithcock was the first woman to staff a state lookout; NRHP-listed in 2000 and now a historic exhibit.
- 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
- Not staffed (as of 1993)
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerFour-sided steel truss frame with bolted connections; glass-enclosed cab reached by an inside stairwayThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1932
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 424 ft (129 m)
- Agency
- N.C. Division of Forest Resources
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Warren County, North Carolina
- Coordinates
- 36.36170, −78.09920
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-nc-warren-county
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
- 1932 BuiltBuilt by the Aermotor Company per Wikipedia and NHLR; a 1932 state report quoted by Eastern US Lookouts gives 80 feetSources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1932 and 1993
- 1993 Last staffedEastern US Lookouts and Wikipedia; the NHLR says active use through 1990Sources: easternuslookouts.weebly.com, en.wikipedia.org
- 1997 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered March 30, 1997Source: nhlr.org
- 2000 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesAdded to the National Register of Historic Places March 3, 2000Source: en.wikipedia.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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Warren County Lookout stands near Liberia, about 4.5 miles south of Warrenton, in Warren County, North Carolina.1,2 It is the only fire tower in that county.2 The Aermotor Company of Chicago built it in 1932, and its four-sided steel truss frame uses bolted connections.2
Sources disagree about how tall it is. Wikipedia and the National Historic Lookout Register both describe a tower about 100 feet high, but a 1932 state report, as quoted by Eastern US Lookouts, gives 80 feet.2,1,3 That same report describes an inside stairway and a glass-enclosed cab.3 Eastern US Lookouts also points out that the measurements in the 2000 National Register form do not agree with one another.3
The register says the tower was the first state forestry lookout in North Carolina staffed by a woman, and it names Bessie Haithcock as that observer.1 Her husband, Earlie, helped build the tower on part of his farm and staffed it until his death.1
Sources do not agree on when the tower stopped being staffed. The register says it was in active use through 1990.1 Wikipedia says it was operated until 1993,2 and Eastern US Lookouts calls 1993 the last year it was staffed.3 None of the sources consulted names a particular fire that the tower spotted.
The register recorded the tower on March 30, 1997.1 It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 3, 2000.2
Today the inside has been restored and is kept as a historic display at the Bessie Haithcock Forestry Center.1 The register lists the N.C. Division of Forest Resources as the agency that administers the tower.1 None of the sources says whether the tower itself is open to visitors, so check with the Division before planning a visit.
- Warren County Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/nc/warren-county-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Warren County Fire Tower, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_County_Fire_Tower (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Warren County, Forest Lookouts, Eastern US Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/warren-county.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, 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
- tnlandforms.us fire lookout towers (Tom Dunigan) -- GA, NC, TN (opens another site) Gave us: type, 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, 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
- Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) (opens another site) Gave us: register numbers, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, staffing, 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 214 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Wikipedia: Warren County Fire Tower (opens another site)
- Warren County (tnlandforms.us (Tom Dunigan)) (opens another site)
- Warren County (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
- Wikidata item Q22061119 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.