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Fire lookout · Pennington County, South Dakota

Seth Bullock Lookout

Also known as Seth Bullock (Scruton Mountain), Seth Bullock Peak, Bullock Lookout Tower

Black Hills National Forest lookout on Scruton Mountain: a 1939 log tower, a steel replacement dated 1975 (1966 in one source), still standing; the summit road is gated.

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. A hiking blog reports the road gate locked and no access onto the tower itself. No Forest Service statement on public access was found.

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
About 1.8 miles one way from the gated road off Edelweiss Mountain Road (FS 251), per a hiking blog. Visitors reported no access to the tower.
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerCL-100 cab on a steel tower (current); the 1939 structure had an L-4 cabThe designs: L-4, CL-100
Built of
Steel
Height
53 ft (16.2 m)
Elevation
5,817 ft (1,773 m)
Agency
US Forest Service, Black Hills National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Pennington County, South Dakota
Coordinates
44.04340, −103.52690
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-sd-seth-bullock

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 3.6 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. 1939 BuiltFirst tower completed September 1939: 30-foot log tower with a 14x14 cab.Sources: westlookouts.weebly.com, nhlr.org
  2. 1940 First staffedThe 1939 report said it would be manned through the fire season from the next spring. firelookout.com lists observers from 1940 to 1944.Sources: westlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
  3. 1949 RebuiltWooden superstructure replaced and stairs reconfigured.Source: firelookout.com
  4. 1954 FireA two-acre blaze half a mile from the tower, controlled by the Pactola ranger and crew.Source: westlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1966 Replaced by a new structurefirelookout.com dates a 67-foot all-steel live-in tower here, partly built from a 53-foot tower moved from Mt. Pisgah, Wyoming. The register and westlookouts date the steel tower to 1975.Sources: firelookout.com, nhlr.org, westlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1975 BuiltCurrent CL-100 cab and steel tower constructed a short distance from the original site.Sources: nhlr.org, westlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1975 RemovedOriginal wooden tower taken down with explosive charges on its legs (westlookouts) or destroyed (firelookout.com).Sources: westlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
  8. No record between 1975 and 2022
  9. 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered July 10, 2022 on the National Historic Lookout Register as US 1658.Source: nhlr.org
  10. 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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Seth Bullock lookout sits on Scruton Mountain, just southwest of Pactola Lake.1,2 It is named for Seth Bullock, who was the Black Hills National Forest's first supervisor.1,3 The forest announced the new station in December 1938.1 By September 1939 the first tower was complete.1 It was a 30-foot log tower whose cab, measuring 14 by 14 feet, held living quarters, and the forest planned to man it through the fire season starting the next spring.1

The register describes that first structure as an open wood tower, 30 feet tall, with an L-4 cab.4 The forest replaced the wooden superstructure and reconfigured the stairs in 1949.5 In July 1954 a two-acre blaze half a mile from the tower was brought under control by a ranger and crew from Pactola.1

The sources disagree about the steel tower that followed. The register dates the current CL-100 cab and steel tower to 1975.4 A book cited by westlookouts says the original tower was taken down with explosive charges that year, and that the replacement is a CL-100 all-steel tower.1 firelookout.com instead lists a 67-foot all-steel live-in tower in 1966, partly built from a 53-foot tower moved from Mt. Pisgah in Wyoming, and says the wooden tower was destroyed in 1975.5 The sources also give different heights, from 53 feet to 67 feet.3,4,5

Today the tower stands on Scruton Mountain.5 The register listed it in July 2022.4 The summit is reached by a gated road off Edelweiss Mountain Road.3 A hiking blog found the gate locked and a walk of about 1.8 miles one way, and reported that visitors cannot get onto the tower itself.2 No Forest Service statement on the tower's current use or any rental turned up in the sources checked.

  1. Seth Bullock - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (westlookouts.weebly.com), https://westlookouts.weebly.com/seth-bullock.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Seth Bullock Lookout Tower, Black Hills Hiking, Biking, and More, https://www.blackhillshikingbikingandmore.com/seth-bullock-lookout-tower (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Scruton Mountain / Seth Bullock Lookout, SummitPost, https://www.summitpost.org/scruton-mountain-seth-bullock-lookout/669002 (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Seth Bullock Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/sd/seth-bullock-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  5. Seth Bullock Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/sd/sethbullock.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Bullock Lookout on Scruton Mountain
Bullock Lookout on Scruton MountainPhoto: South Dakota Pubic Television, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Seth Bullock Lookout - 1941
Seth Bullock Lookout - 1941 (1941)Photo: US Forest Service - Rocky Mountain Region Office, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Seth Bullock in 1941
Seth Bullock in 1941 (1941)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Seth Bullock in 1941
Seth Bullock in 1941 (1941)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Seth Bullock in 1941
Seth Bullock in 1941 (1941)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Seth Bullock in 1966
Seth Bullock in 1966 (1966)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Seth Bullock in 1966
Seth Bullock in 1966 (1966)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Seth Bullock in 1966
Seth Bullock in 1966 (1966)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Seth Bullock in 1966
Seth Bullock in 1966 (1966)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Seth Bullock in 1975
Seth Bullock in 1975 (1975)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Seth Bullock in 1975
Seth Bullock in 1975 (1975)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Seth Bullock in 1975
Seth Bullock in 1975 (1975)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Seth Bullock in 1979
Seth Bullock in 1979 (1979)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, and Ron Kemnow, via firelookout.com · source
Seth Bullock in 2011
Seth Bullock in 2011 (2011)Photo: the National Archives and Records Administration, South Dakota Digital Archives, 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.

    • NHLR: 1975
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1939

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

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, 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 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. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: design, height, 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
  4. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  5. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) 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
  6. 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.