Fire lookout · Barnwell County, South Carolina
Barnwell Lookout Tower
An 80-foot steel lookout on SC Highway 64 in Barnwell, dated to 1935; fire observation ended in 1993 and it now serves as a radio repeater site.
- Standing
- Restricted access
- Verified
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Restricted access
Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. Lowest steps removed to discourage climbing; the tower now carries a radio repeater.
- Can you climb it?
- No
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerSteel tower, appears to be an Aermotor LS-40 (per register), with a 10 x 7 x 7 ft steel cabThe design: Aermotor LS-40
- Built of
- Steel
- Built
- 1935
- Height
- 80 ft (24.4 m)
- Elevation
- 228 ft (70 m)
- Agency
- South Carolina Forestry Commission
- Land
- State land
- Location
- Barnwell County, South Carolina
- Coordinates
- 33.22306, −81.34139
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-sc-barnwell
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 2.8 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
- 1935 BuiltRegister says about 1935 and SC Picture Project says 1935; a December 1935 paper still lists tower construction as pendingSources: nhlr.org, scpictureproject.org, historicnewspapers.sc.edu
- 1938 EventCCC enrollees repainted the living quarters at the tower site (1938-39)Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1938 and 1993
- 1993 EventFire observation ended statewide; tower decommissioned as a fire tower and now a radio repeater siteSource: scpictureproject.org
- No record between 1993 and 2014
- 2014 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterDate registered per NHLR detail page: March 27, 2014Source: 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 Barnwell tower is an 80-foot steel lookout that the register dates to about 1935 and the SC Picture Project to 1935.1,2 The SC Picture Project says the South Carolina Forestry Commission built it, and the register thinks it may be an Aermotor LS-40.1,2
Newspaper reports suggest the work ran later than that.3,4 In early December 1935 the Barnwell People-Sentinel reported that the Barnwell County Forest Protective Association had finished its set-up, apart from building the towers and appointing towermen.3 On 24 December 1936 the same paper reported that three fire towers had been built.4 It names three sites, one of them "at Barnwell, near" the Charleston highway, but it does not name this tower, so I cannot be certain it is the same one.4 The sources do not settle whether the tower was finished in 1935 or in 1936.
A state forestry report from 1939, as cited by the Eastern US Lookouts page, says Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees repainted the living quarters at the tower site in 1938 and 1939.5
South Carolina ended fire observation from its lookouts in 1993, and this tower has since been decommissioned as a fire tower.2 It now serves as a radio repeater, which receives weak signals and sends them on at a higher power.2 The lowest steps have been removed to discourage climbing.2 The site is on South Carolina Highway 64 in Barnwell.2 The sources do not describe any other access, so treat the site as restricted and do not climb the tower.
- Barnwell Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/sc/barnwell-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Barnwell Fire Lookout, SC Picture Project, https://www.scpictureproject.org/barnwell-county/barnwell-fire-lookout.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- The Barnwell People-Sentinel, 5 December 1935, page 1, University of South Carolina Libraries Historic Newspapers, https://historicnewspapers.sc.edu/lccn/sn93067675/1935-12-05/ed-1/seq-1/ocr.txt (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- The Barnwell People-Sentinel, 24 December 1936, page 1, University of South Carolina Libraries Historic Newspapers, https://historicnewspapers.sc.edu/lccn/sn93067675/1936-12-24/ed-1/seq-1/ocr.txt (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Barnwell, Eastern US Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/barnwell.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, type, what it is built of, 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: 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, access, visiting details, 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 1004 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- NHLR register entry (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Barnwell Fire Lookout (SC Picture Project) (opens another site)
- The Barnwell People-Sentinel, 5 December 1935, page 1 (University of South Carolina Libraries, Historic Newspapers) (opens another site)
- The Barnwell People-Sentinel, 24 December 1936, page 1 (University of South Carolina Libraries, Historic Newspapers) (opens another site)
- Barnwell (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.