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Fire lookout · Allendale County, South Carolina

Appleton/Bramlett Tower

80-foot Aermotor LS-40 tower first built near Appleton, SC; sold by the state, moved about 3 miles, reconstructed on private land; current condition unconfirmed.

Private land

No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. Moved to a private location after sale by the state; no public access found.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Private land. 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
Type unknownAermotor LS-40 steel tower, 80 ft, with 7 by 7 foot cabThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
80 ft (24.4 m)
Elevation
207 ft (63 m)
Agency
South Carolina Forestry Commission (original owner)
Land
Unknown
Location
Allendale County, South Carolina
Coordinates
32.98722, −81.40833
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-sc-appleton-bramlett

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 3.2 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. 1930 BuiltRegister's Built field gives 1930; its description says the tower was originally built near Appleton in the late 1930sSource: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1930 and 1993
  3. 1993 ClosedSC Forestry Commission closed its fire tower system on October 1, 1993 (system-wide closure)Source: scfc.gov
  4. No record between 1993 and 2013
  5. 2013 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered February 24, 2013Source: nhlr.org
  6. 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Appleton tower first stood by the crossroads at Appleton, in Allendale County, South Carolina.1,2 The National Historic Lookout Register gives 1930 as its build year.1 Its description, though, says the tower was first put up there in the late 1930s, and the sources we read do not settle which is right.1

The steel tower is an Aermotor LS-40, 80 feet tall, with a cab measuring 7 by 7 feet.1,2 Across the state's tower system, fire danger set how long an operator spent in the cab, and the South Carolina Forestry Commission closed the whole system on October 1, 1993.3 We found no named fire tied to this particular tower, and no operator whose name we could confirm.

The tower was bought from the state in the late 1990s and moved about three miles to a new home, where the register says it was reconstructed.1,2 Forest Lookouts describes the same change as a sale to a private party.2

The register added the tower on February 24, 2013, and includes an aerial view of it from that year.1 A Facebook post in a South Carolina historic photos group calls its pictures the remains of the Appleton fire tower, and mentions the poster's grandparents in connection with the tower.4 The text we could read is cut off and gives no date or location for the ruins, so we cannot tell whether they show this tower. The current condition of the tower is not confirmed.

The tower is on private land, and we found no public access. Ask the owner before you plan any visit, and do not go onto the property without permission.2

  1. Appleton/Bramlett Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/sc/appletonbramlett-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Appleton, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/appleton.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Pictures From Our Past, South Carolina Forestry Commission, https://www.scfc.gov/about-us/history/pictures-from-our-past/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. South Carolina Picture Project: Historic Landmarks, Facebook group post, https://www.facebook.com/groups/scpictureproject/posts/2548424605462663/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Appleton/Bramlett Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Aerial view of tower, 2013
Aerial view of tower, 2013 (2013)Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Appleton/Bramlett Tower
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, 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
  2. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.