Fire lookout · Lee County, South Carolina
Atkins Fire Tower
A 110-foot galvanized Aermotor LS-40 lookout in Lee County, South Carolina, built near 1936; its keeper's house stood until about 2010.
- 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
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerGalvanized Aermotor LS-40, 110 ft, with a 7 x 7 ft steel cabThe design: Aermotor LS-40
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1936
- Height
- 110 ft (33.5 m)
- Elevation
- 155 ft (47 m)
- Agency
- South Carolina Forestry Commission
- Land
- State land
- Location
- Lee County, South Carolina
- Coordinates
- 34.04389, −80.12083
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-sc-atkins
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 BuiltRegister says built near 1936; no exact date foundSource: nhlr.org
- No record between 1936 and 2010
- 2010 EventTower keeper's house on the site until about 2010; the register describes the site as abandonedSource: nhlr.org
- 2013 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterDate registered per NHLR detail page: December 12, 2013Source: NHLR register entry
- 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Atkins tower is a galvanized Aermotor LS-40 that stands 110 feet tall, with a steel cab about seven feet square.1,2 The National Historic Lookout Register says it was built near 1936. I found no exact date in any other source.1
The South Carolina Forestry Commission is named as the agency for the tower.2 The site once had a tower keeper's house, which stood until about 2010, and the register now describes the site as abandoned.1 The register also places the tower at what seems to be its original site.1
The tower overlooks farmland in the Pee Dee District of Lee County.1 The register's photographs are captioned October 2013, and I found no later report on its condition.1 Statewide, South Carolina ended fire observation from its lookouts in 1993, but I found no record of this tower's last year in use.3
The sources I checked say nothing about public access. Check with the Forestry Commission before going to the site, and do not climb the tower.
- Atkins Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/sc/atkins-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Atkins - Forest Lookouts, Eastern US Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/atkins.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Barnwell Fire Lookout, SC Picture Project, https://www.scpictureproject.org/barnwell-county/barnwell-fire-lookout.html (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
- 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) Gave us: type, what it is built of, design, height, ownership, 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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 983 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- NHLR register entry (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Barnwell Fire Lookout (SC Picture Project) (opens another site)
- Atkins (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.