Fire lookout · Lexington County, South Carolina
Gaston Firetower
Lexington County tower built around 1936; the SC Forestry Commission still owns it, and a nearby keeper's house is a part-time sheriff's substation.
- 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 tower100' Aermotor LS-40 tower with 7'x7' cabThe design: Aermotor LS-40
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1936
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 499 ft (152 m)
- Agency
- South Carolina Forestry Commission
- Land
- State land
- Location
- Lexington County, South Carolina
- Coordinates
- 33.81420, −81.10259
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-sc-gaston
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
- 1936 BuiltBuilt around 1936 per the register; Wikipedia gives 1936 as the first build yearSources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org
- No record between 1936 and 1993
- 1993 EventSC Forestry Commission closed its tower system on 1 October 1993; the register says this tower is still SCFC-ownedSources: nhlr.org, scfc.gov
- No record between 1993 and 2013
- 2013 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered 3 January 2013 as US 955, SC 12Source: nhlr.org
- 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 Gaston tower in Lexington County was built around 1936.1 The National Historic Lookout Register describes it as a 100-foot Aermotor LS-40 with a 7-by-7-foot cab, and it is one of three towers in the county that the South Carolina Forestry Commission still owns.1 Wikipedia's article on the town of Gaston also gives 1936 as the first build year.2
The Forestry Commission's tower network started in August 1930 with a tower near Camden, and the agency closed the whole system on October 1, 1993.3
The register notes a keeper's house near the tower.1 It is used part time as a substation for the Lexington County Sheriff's Department.1 I found no source that names a fire this tower watched or the people who worked in its cab, so those parts of its history are still unknown.
Wikipedia gives the tower a height of 499 feet.2 The register gives an elevation of 499 feet (152 m) and a height of 100 feet for the tower itself, so the Wikipedia figure probably mixes up the elevation with the tower's height.1
I could not find any source that says whether the public may visit or climb the tower today. Please ask the Forestry Commission before going near it.
- Gaston Firetower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/sc/gaston-firetower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Gaston, South Carolina, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaston,_South_Carolina (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Pictures From Our Past, South Carolina Forestry Commission, https://www.scfc.gov/about-us/history/pictures-from-our-past/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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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: 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 955 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Pictures From Our Past (South Carolina Forestry Commission) (opens another site)
- Gaston, South Carolina (Wikipedia) (opens another site)
- Gaston (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.