FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Edgefield County, South Carolina

Liberty Hill Lookout

100-foot LS-40 Aermotor lookout near McCormick, Edgefield County, SC; Forest Service use ended 1989; 2020 visit found the tower sound, base fenced, no tower access.

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. Base is fenced and posted no trespassing (2020 visit report); a hiking guide says the upper deck is not open to visitors.

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Roadside stop of 0.1 miles round trip; no tower access
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower100-foot LS-40 Aermotor tower with 7 by 7 foot galvanized sheet metal cab and hip roofThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1940
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
519 ft (158 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Edgefield County, South Carolina
Coordinates
33.92278, −82.14278
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-sc-liberty-hill-2

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. 1940 BuiltNHLR build year; the description says constructed in the 1940sSource: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1940 and 1972
  3. 1972 StaffedJoe and Trula Price manned the tower as of May 1972; the item gives 30 years for him and 25 for herSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1972 and 1989
  5. 1989 EventUsed by the Forest Service until 1989, per the RegisterSource: nhlr.org
  6. No record between 1989 and 2009
  7. 2009 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered November 17, 2009 as US 836, SC 6; nominated by Ron StaffordSource: nhlr.org
  8. 2020 Condition assessmentVisit report by Christopher Armenti, September 16, 2020: good structural condition, fenced base, not staffedSource: nhlr.org
  9. 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 Liberty Hill Lookout is a 100-foot Aermotor LS-40 tower on the Sumter National Forest in Edgefield County, South Carolina, near McCormick.1,2 The National Historic Lookout Register gives 1940 as its build year and says it was constructed in the 1940s, with a 7-by-7-foot galvanized sheet metal cab under a hip roof.1 The Forest Service used it until 1989.1

The Register places the tower among the Forest Service's early fixed-point fire lookouts.1 The Register says the buildings around the tower housed the dispatch office for the Edgefield and Long Cane districts. During extreme fire days, those buildings also stored fire equipment and served as a staging area.1

Two items quoted on the Forest Lookouts page describe the people who ran it.2 Joe Price was a Civilian Conservation Corps member and a retired forestry technician.2 His 1992 obituary says he was a dispatcher and lookout at the tower for 35 years.2 A May 1972 Index-Journal item, also quoted there, says he and his wife, Trula Price, manned the tower at their home: he for 30 years and she for 25.2 The two figures disagree, and neither gives a start date. Trula Price had begun keeping rainfall records for the Weather Service in January 1952, and in 1972 the National Weather Service gave her a pin for 20 years of that work.2

A visit report on the Register's page, dated September 16, 2020, found the tower in good structural condition with little sign of rust. It marked the lookout as not staffed.1 The base is fenced off, the stairs cannot be reached, and the fence is posted no trespassing.1

A hiking guide says the upper deck is not open and that there is no tower access. It lists the site as a roadside stop of 0.1 miles round trip.3 Stay outside the fence; the tower is not open for climbing.1,3

  1. Liberty Hill Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/sc/liberty-hill-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Liberty Hill (Edgefield), Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/liberty-hill-edgefield.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. 016 – Liberty Hill Lookout Tower (SC), HikingWNC, https://hikingwnc.com/016-liberty-hill-lookout-tower-sc/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

September 2020 photo
September 2020 photo (2020)Photo: Christopher Armenti, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, status, register numbers, agency, ownership, 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: type, 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
  3. 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

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