Fire lookout · Marion County, Tennessee
Franklin State Forest Lookout Tower
Also known as Cave Spring
An 80-ft Aermotor LS-40 fire tower in Franklin State Forest, Marion County, built after 1940; state policy bars the public from climbing it.
- Standing
- Closed
- Verified
Closed
The site is closed to visitors. The state says fire towers on state forests are not open to the public; visitors may photograph them but may not climb
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.
- Can you climb it?
- No
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Trail
- Forest reached via State Highway 156; the tower may be photographed but not climbed
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower80-ft Aermotor LS-40The design: Aermotor LS-40
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1940
- Height
- 80 ft (24.4 m)
- Elevation
- 1,863 ft (568 m)
- Agency
- Tennessee Division of Forestry
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Marion County, Tennessee
- Coordinates
- 35.07588, −85.84197
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-tn-franklin-state-forest
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 3.2 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
- 1940 Built'Built' field on NHLR detail pageSource: NHLR register entry
- No record between 1940 and 2023
- 2023 Condition assessmentNHLR site visit November 24, 2023Source: nhlr.org
- 2023 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered December 16, 2023; nominated by Jason JohnsSource: 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 Franklin State Forest Lookout Tower stands in Marion County, Tennessee, inside the state forest that covers parts of Marion and Franklin counties on the Cumberland Plateau.1,2 The National Historic Lookout Register describes it as an 80-foot Aermotor LS-40 at about 1,863 feet above sea level.1 The register gives its build date only as after 1940, and I could not find an exact year.1
The state acquired the first land for the forest in 1936 from the Cross Creek Coal Company.1,2 The Division of Forestry took over management in 1940 and began restoring land the register describes as highly degraded.1,2 The register also describes a history of timber abuse through diameter-limit cuts and uncontrolled wildfires.1 I found no source that says who staffed the tower, why it was built, or whether any particular fire involved it.
TNLandForms.us, an independent lookout site, lists a tower called Cave Spring in Marion County at 1,864 feet, marked as standing.3 The register and that list give nearly the same elevation and county, so they likely describe one tower. Neither source says so outright, so treat the match as likely rather than confirmed.1,3 The register records a site visit on November 24, 2023.1
People have long used the forest for hunting, hiking and horseback riding.2 Under the state's fire-tower policy, these towers are not open to the public. Photography is allowed, but climbing is not.2 Visitors reach the forest by State Highway 156, which the state places roughly 11 miles south of Monteagle and Interstate 24.2 I found no record of the tower being rented out.
- Franklin State Forest Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/tn/franklin-state-forest-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Franklin State Forest, Tennessee Division of Forestry, https://tn.gov/agriculture/forests/state-forests/franklin.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Tennessee Lookout Towers, TNLandForms.us, https://tnlandforms.us/towers/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, 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
- tnlandforms.us fire lookout towers (Tom Dunigan) -- GA, NC, TN (opens another site) Gave us: type, links tnlandforms.us (Tom Dunigan) · No licence stated; facts only (coordinates, county, elevation, NGS/GFC/BLL register cross-references, status where given). · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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
- NHLR register entry US 1771 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Franklin State Forest (Tennessee Division of Forestry) (opens another site)
- Cave Spring (tnlandforms.us (Tom Dunigan)) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.