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Fire lookout · Richland County, South Carolina

Eastover Tower

c.1936 SC Forestry Commission tower, 120 ft, named Eastover Tower; moved to private property in 1995 and sold to Ray Littlejohn in 2007 but not yet moved.

Private land

No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. On private property (Huggins family property per NHLR; Littlejohn listed as owner); no public access described

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
Cab on a tower120' Aermotor LS-40 steel tower with 7'x7' steel cabThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Steel
Built
1936
Height
120 ft (36.6 m)
Elevation
246 ft (75 m)
Agency
South Carolina Forestry Commission (original); Ray Littlejohn, owner per NHLR
Land
Unknown
Location
Richland County, South Carolina
Coordinates
33.94972, −80.70167
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-sc-eastover

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 2.9 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. 1936 BuiltErected around 1936 by the SC Forestry Commission, named Eastover TowerSources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1936 and 1993
  3. 1993 ClosedSC Forestry Commission closed its fire tower system on October 1, 1993 (system-wide; not specific to this tower)Source: scfc.gov
  4. 1995 MovedPurchased by Dr. Ken Huggins and moved to family property (NHLR); Forest Lookouts says sold and moved to private propertySources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1995 and 2013
  6. 2013 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered February 24, 2013 as US 966, SC 19Source: nhlr.org
  7. 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 Eastover Tower was built around 1936 as a 120-foot Aermotor LS-40 steel tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab.1,2 The Register says the South Carolina Forestry Commission named it Eastover Tower, and the Forest Lookouts site lists the Commission as the agency for the Richland County site.1,2

The sources we read do not name anyone who staffed the tower or any fire it watched. The Commission ended its fire tower network on October 1, 1993.3

The Register says Dr. Ken Huggins bought the tower in 1995 and moved it to family property. The Forest Lookouts site also says it was sold and moved to private property that year.1,2 Huggins sold it to Ray Littlejohn in 2007, and the Register notes that it still had not been moved.1

Today the Register lists Ray Littlejohn as the owner. A June 2018 Columbia Metropolitan Magazine feature describes a visit to the tower on Huggins's property, rising about 120 feet from the forest floor, about fifteen years earlier.4 Taken together, these accounts suggest the tower may still be on the family property, but we found no current report that confirms where it stands. We found no public access, so please ask the owner before going near it.

  1. Eastover Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/sc/eastover-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Eastover, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/eastover.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. A Bird's Eye View, Columbia Metropolitan Magazine, https://columbiametro.com/article/a-birds-eye-view/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Eastover 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, 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
  2. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, 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.