Fire lookout · San Juan County, New Mexico
Tohnitsha Lookout
Navajo Reservation lookout in San Juan County, NM; NHLR gives a 1936 build and an 82.9 ft International Derrick tower with a 7x7 cab; FFLA lists it standing.
- Standing
- Tribal land: permission required
- Verified
Tribal land: permission required
This site is on tribal land. Ask the tribe for permission before visiting, and follow its rules. On tribal land. Ask the tribe before visiting.
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Tribal land: permission required. See the warning at the top of this page.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerInternational Derrick tower with 7x7 metal cab (NHLR description)The designs: IDECO, Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1936
- Height
- 83 ft (25.3 m)
- Elevation
- 8,973 ft (2,735 m)
- Agency
- Navajo Indian Reservation
- Land
- Tribal land
- Location
- San Juan County, New Mexico
- Coordinates
- 36.15387, −108.88925
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-nm-tohnitsha
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
- 1936 BuiltBuilt in 1936 with a 7x7 metal cab, per the NHLR description and Built fieldSource: nhlr.org
- No record between 1936 and 2002
- 2002 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on the National Historic Lookout Register on July 20, 2002 as US 434, NM 9Source: 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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Tohnitsha Lookout stands on the Navajo Reservation in San Juan County, New Mexico, at 8,973 feet.1 The National Historic Lookout Register gives its build year as 1936.1 The register's description places it in the International Derrick group. That maker was less common than Aermotor, but the register says it built a number of fire towers across the Southwest in the 1930s and early 1940s.1 The tower is 82.9 feet high and has a 7-by-7-foot metal cab.1
The register recorded the lookout on July 20, 2002, under the number US 434, NM 9.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's New Mexico list shows it as a standing tower under the same number.2
The sources I reached do not describe who staffed the tower, what fires touched it, or what repairs or changes it has seen since 1936. I could not find a fuller history.
Because it sits on the reservation, please check with the Navajo Nation before planning any visit. I found no current statement about access.1
- Tohnitsha Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/nm/tohnitsha-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- New Mexico Lookouts by County, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/nm/nm-co/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
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, register numbers, agency, ownership, access, 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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) 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
- 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 434 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- NHLR register entry (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- New Mexico Lookouts by County (Forest Fire Lookout Association) (opens another site)
- FFLA New Mexico lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Tohnitsha on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.