Fire lookout · Hardeman County, Tennessee
Hickory Valley Lookout Tower
Hardeman County, TN: 80 ft Aermotor LS-40 still on state-owned land per the 2023 NHLR visit; listed extant in 2014. No build date or staffing found.
- Standing
- Restricted access
- Verified
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. Register says the site is still owned by the state; no public access described in the sources read
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower80 ft Aermotor LS-40; maker's badge no longer attached (NHLR)The design: Aermotor LS-40
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 80 ft (24.4 m)
- Elevation
- 640 ft (195 m)
- Agency
- Tennessee Division of Forestry
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Hardeman County, Tennessee
- Coordinates
- 35.17600, −89.10931
- Registers
- NHLR US 1755 · TN 59
- NGS FE 2477
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-tn-hickory-valley
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
- 2014 Condition assessmentListed among extant Tennessee fire towers in the table dated March 26, 2014Source: npgallery.nps.gov
- 2023 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered August 7, 2023 (NHLR); site visit recorded as 8/5/23Source: 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 Hickory Valley Lookout Tower stands in Hardeman County, Tennessee, on land the state still owns.1 The Register added it in August 2023.1 We did not find when it was built. The Tennessee Division of Forestry began building its fire tower network in 1933, and the Civilian Conservation Corps supplied labor for the work.2 The Aermotor LS-40 later became the forestry division's most popular tower design, and it was widely used until the mid-1970s.2
The Register describes the tower as an 80-foot Aermotor LS-40 and notes that the maker's badge is no longer attached.1 It names the state forestry division as administrator.1 The Register gives the site's elevation as 640 feet, while the state's list gives 653 feet, so the two sources disagree.1,3
A 2014 table in the National Register document for the state's towers lists Hickory Valley among the extant towers.2 The Register's entry records a site visit on August 5, 2023, and says the site contains the tower.1
We found no account of who staffed the tower or of any fire it watched. The Register does not describe public access.1 Because the land belongs to the state, anyone interested should ask the Tennessee Division of Forestry before visiting.
- Hickory Valley Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/tn/hickory-valley-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Tennessee Division of Forestry Fire Lookout Towers, 1933 to 1975, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, https://npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Text/64501237.pdf (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Tennessee Lookout Towers, Tennessee Landforms, 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, register numbers, 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, 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 1755 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Tennessee Division of Forestry Fire Lookout Towers, 1933 to 1975 (National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places) (opens another site)
- Hickory Valley (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.