FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Santa Fe County, New Mexico

Glorieta Baldy Lookout

A 1940 Civilian Conservation Corps lookout with a live-in cab on an Aermotor MC-24 tower near La Cueva, NRHP-listed in 1988; one listing now says closed.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. Undated Campflare listing says closed until further notice; day use only, no overnight camping. Forest Road 375 typically closed early September through spring.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor MC-24 tower with an R-3 live-in 14'x14' wooden cab, no catwalkCab: Region 3 cab; tower: Aermotor MC-24
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1940
Height
66 ft (20.0 m)
Elevation
10,220 ft (3,115 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Santa Fe County, New Mexico
Coordinates
35.65200, −105.80000
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-nm-glorieta-baldy

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 3.3 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

  1. 1940 BuiltBuilt by the Civilian Conservation CorpsSources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org, firerescue1.com
  2. No record between 1940 and 1988
  3. 1988 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesAdded to NRHP January 27, 1988 (NRIS 87002492)Sources: en.wikipedia.org, npgallery.nps.gov
  4. 1999 Last staffedLast used as a fire lookout in 1999; the restoration project aims to return it to that standard.Sources: firelookout.org, firelookout.org
  5. 2007 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered December 7, 2007 as US 709, NM 28; nominated by Dave LorenzSource: nhlr.org
  6. 2017 EventAP reported the tower long decommissioned; a forest booster group began raising up to $100,000 to rehabilitate it for rental useSource: firerescue1.com
  7. 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 (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Glorieta Baldy Lookout stands in the Santa Fe National Forest near La Cueva, about 10 miles east of Santa Fe.1,2 The Civilian Conservation Corps built it in 1940.2 Its design is an Aermotor MC-24 tower with a live-in wooden cab, 14 feet by 14 feet and without a catwalk.3

The National Historic Lookout Register ranks it among the best surviving examples of the Aermotor MC-24 design.3 The tower was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 27, 1988.1,4 Dave Lorenz nominated it to the lookout register, which entered it as US 709 on December 7, 2007.3

The register does not say who staffed the lookout or when it last watched for fires.3

In September 2017 the Associated Press reported that the tower had been out of service for a long time, and that a support group for the forest was collecting up to $100,000 to fix it up as a rental.2 As of September 2017, Wikipedia said the tower was in poor repair.1 Work was to be paid for by Friends of the Santa Fe National Forest, a nonprofit, and the tower was to join the forest's cabin rental program.1 Forest archaeologist Mike Bremer said a restored tower would let visitors see how it looked when the Civilian Conservation Corps built it.2 Bill Zunkel of the nonprofit Friends of the Santa Fe National Forest said the tower must be shielded from lightning and bad weather.2

A Campflare listing, which carries no date, says the lookout is shut until further notice and that the site is for day use only, with no overnight camping.5 The listing also says Forest Road 375 usually closes from early September until spring, and that the rough road is a poor bet for low-clearance vehicles or trailers.5 I found no source confirming that a cabin rental has opened, so treat the tower as off limits until the forest says otherwise. The Pecos/Las Vegas Ranger District is named as a cooperator on the register and is the place to ask about its current status.3

  1. Glorieta Baldy Lookout Tower, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorieta_Baldy_Lookout_Tower (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Cabin in the sky: Historic fire lookout tower could be up for rent, Associated Press via FireRescue1, https://www.firerescue1.com/history/articles/cabin-in-the-sky-historic-fire-lookout-tower-could-be-up-for-rent-xoITz354eJFD7VVa/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Glorieta Baldy Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/nm/glorieta-baldy-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Glorieta Baldy Lookout Tower, National Register of Historic Places, NPGallery, https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/87002492 (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  5. Glorieta Baldy Lookout Campground, Campflare, https://campflare.com/campground/glorieta-baldy-lookout-028 (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Glorieta Baldy Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, 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
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. Recreation Information Database (recreation.gov) Gave us: ownership, access Data source: ridb.recreation.gov · Public data from the US government · retrieved 19 Oct 2026
  4. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: what it is built of, design, dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: register numbers, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  6. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: height, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  7. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  8. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, agency, access, 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

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