Fire lookout · Coos County, Oregon
Hanging Rock Lookout Site
Siskiyou NF lookout in Coos County: a 40-foot L-4 tower built in 1939 with CCC labor, abandoned in the 1950s and gone.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in the 1950s and gone per the register and Rex's page; Forest Lookouts status line reads Removed with no date; no removal year found
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 tower40-foot wooden tower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1939
- Height
- 40 ft (12.2 m)
- Elevation
- 3,954 ft (1,205 m)
- Agency
- U.S. Forest Service (Siskiyou National Forest)
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Coos County, Oregon
- Coordinates
- 42.74191, −123.92951
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-or-hanging-rock
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 3.5 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
- 1939 BuiltForest Service announced a new 40-foot tower and station in August 1939; CCC crews under the local ranger built it; described as nearly finished in October 1939Sources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
- 1941 StaffedLookout staffed 94 days; reports went to the Powers Ranger StationSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
- 1950 AbandonedRegister and Rex's page say abandoned in the 1950s; 1950 is a placeholder for the decade, not a recorded dateSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
- No record between 1950 and 2019
- 2019 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered on the Former Fire Lookout Sites register on October 15, 2019Source: firetower.org
- 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Hanging Rock, in Coos County, Oregon, got a 40-foot lookout tower in 1939.1,2 In August 1939 the lookout was still housed in a tent.3 That month the Myrtle Point Herald reported that a new 40-foot tower and lookout station were to be built, with CCC boys under the ranger's supervision doing the work.3 The Coos Bay Times said in October that the new lookout was nearly finished.3 The tower carried an L-4 cab.1,4 A newspaper report also said the lookout offered excellent coverage of the Rogue River country and the upper reaches of the Coquille's South Fork.3
The lookout was staffed for 94 days in 1941, and its reports went to the Powers Ranger Station over a West Coast Telephone line.3 A 1940 guard placement plan said the site had good views of the Agness and Galice districts, where fires caused by people were most likely to start.3
The register says the lookout was abandoned during the 1950s and no longer stands.1 Rex's Fire Lookout Page and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Oregon list both call the tower gone.2,5 Weebly's history says the tower was removed, but gives no date.3
No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether visitors can reach it.
- Hanging Rock Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, Forest Fire Lookout Association, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/hanging-rock-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Hanging Rock Fire Lookout Tower, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://www.firelookout.com/or/hangingrock.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Hanging Rock, Forest Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/hanging-rock.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Historic Fire Lookouts on the Siskiyou National Forest, USDA Forest Service, https://digital.sou.edu/digital/api/collection/p16085coll18/id/41128/download (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Oregon Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.
Sources
- Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) Gave us: links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: height, 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
- FFLOS register entry US 1769 (firetower.org) (opens another site)
- Historic Fire Lookouts on the Siskiyou National Forest: Cultural Property Inventory and Request for a Determination of Eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places (USDA Forest Service, Siskiyou National Forest (hosted by Southern Oregon University Digital Collections)) (opens another site)
- FFLA Oregon lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Hanging Rock on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Hanging Rock 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.