FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Lawrence County, South Dakota

Custer Peak Lookout

Also known as Custer Lookout Tower

Native-stone 1941 fire lookout on Custer Peak in the Black Hills, successor to a 1911 wooden tower, with a long roster of named staff through 1964.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. Located in Black Hills National Forest, publicly accessible; not an overnight rental.

Can you climb it?
Yes
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Two-story buildingTwo-story native stone cab, 14x14 ft with catwalk, architect W. Ellis GrobenThe design: Cupola house
Built of
Stone sources disagree
Height
Unknown
Elevation
6,713 ft (2,046 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Lawrence County, South Dakota
Coordinates
44.24396, −103.73485
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-sd-custer-peak

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 4.2 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. 1911 BuiltFirst fire lookout on Custer Peak built of wood, with shutters but no glass, on a railing-less platform.Source: nhlr.org
  2. 1921 StaffedHans Miller recorded as lookout.Source: firelookout.com
  3. 1935 Replaced by a new structureWooden tower replaced with a cupola building (NHLR gives 1935; firelookout.com suggests the 1920s).Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  4. 1941 BuiltSource: firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page
  5. 1941 RebuiltCurrent two-story native stone tower built, 14x14 ft cab with catwalk, designed by W. Ellis Groben.Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  6. 1944 Last staffedFrank Tower's recorded tenure as lookout runs 1917 to 1944.Source: firelookout.com
  7. 1946 StaffedJames Curry and E.A. Nelson recorded as lookouts.Source: firelookout.com
  8. 1948 StaffedJim Meyers recorded as lookout, 1947-1948.Source: firelookout.com
  9. No record between 1948 and 1963
  10. 1963 StaffedJohn Sloss recorded as lookout, 1949-1963.Source: firelookout.com
  11. 1964 Last staffedEvelyn Sorheim recorded as lookout.Source: firelookout.com
  12. No record between 1964 and 1990
  13. 1990 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterAdded to the National Historic Lookout Register, October 13, 1990.Source: nhlr.org
  14. No record between 1990 and 2008
  15. 2008 AlteredForest Service employees carried out a stabilization project on the tower near Deadwood.Source: nhlr.org
  16. No record between 2008 and 2025
  17. 2025 RestoredRestoration project carried out by HistoriCorps.Source: firelookout.org
  18. 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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Custer Peak, on the Nemo Ranger District of the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota, has carried a fire lookout since 1911, the year after a wave of catastrophic wildfires pushed the Forest Service to start building towers across the country.1,2 The first structure on the peak was simple: a wooden cabin with shutters but no glass, sitting on an open platform with no railings.1 It was replaced by a cupola-style building, with sources differing on whether that happened around the 1920s or as late as 1935.1,3

The stone tower that stands on the peak today dates to 1941, built as a two-story, 14-by-14-foot cab with a catwalk, using native stone chosen to blend with the surrounding landscape.1,3 The architect was W. Ellis Groben, who designed the lookout specifically to match its surroundings.1

A number of lookout staff are recorded by name over the decades: Hans Miller in 1921, Frank Tower from 1917 to 1944, James Curry and E.A. Nelson in 1946, Jim Meyers from 1947 to 1948, John Sloss from 1949 to 1963, and Evelyn Sorheim in 1964.3

The tower has needed upkeep over the years; Forest Service employees carried out a stabilization project on it near Deadwood in 2008, and its history notes the ongoing risk of vandalism to historic lookouts like this one.2

Custer Peak Lookout was added to the National Historic Lookout Register in 1990.1 It remains standing today and is publicly accessible within the Black Hills National Forest, though it is not available as an overnight rental.1

  1. Custer Peak Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/sd/custer-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Custer Peak Fire Lookout brochure, National Historic Lookout Register / U.S. Forest Service, http://nhlr.org/media/4796/custer-peak-brochure.pdf (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Custer Peak Lookout, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/sd/custerpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Custer Peak Lookout
Custer Peak LookoutPhoto: South Dakota Public Television, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Custer Peak L.O.
Custer Peak L.OPhoto: the U.S. Forest Service, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Fire Lookout Museum, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Custer Peak L.O.
Custer Peak L.OPhoto: the U.S. Forest Service, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Fire Lookout Museum, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Custer Peak in the 1920s
Custer Peak in the 1920s (1920)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Fire Lookout Museum, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Custer Peak in 1934
Custer Peak in 1934 (1934)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Fire Lookout Museum, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Custer Peak in 1936
Custer Peak in 1936 (1936)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Fire Lookout Museum, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Custer Peak in 1942
Custer Peak in 1942 (1942)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Fire Lookout Museum, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Custer Peak L.O.
Custer Peak L.OPhoto: the U.S. Forest Service, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Fire Lookout Museum, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Custer Peak in 2011
Custer Peak in 2011 (2011)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Fire Lookout Museum, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · 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.

Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the year it was built.

    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1941
    • recreation.gov: 1911

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

  • Sources disagree on what it is built of.

    • NHLR: Stone
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: Mixed

    Sources name different materials. Often one describes an earlier structure.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, 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. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. Recreation Information Database (recreation.gov) Gave us: ownership, access Data source: ridb.recreation.gov · Public data from the US government · retrieved 12 Oct 2026
  4. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: dates, photos, links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  5. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  6. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  7. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  8. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, 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.