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Fire lookout · Chester County, Tennessee

Jack's Creek Lookout Tower

Also known as Cabo

Chester County, TN: 60 ft Aermotor LS-40 (Jack's Creek, listed as Cabo by the state); now privately owned per the 2023 NHLR visit. No build or staffing history found.

Private land

No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. Register lists the site as privately owned; no public access described. Ask the owner before going onto the property.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Private land. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower60 ft Aermotor LS-40 (NHLR); site also has a housing trailer, quonset hut and small officeThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
Unknown
Height
60 ft (18.3 m)
Elevation
648 ft (198 m)
Agency
Privately owned; formerly Tennessee Division of Forestry (per NHLR 2023)
Land
Unknown
Location
Chester County, Tennessee
Coordinates
35.43097, −88.47283
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-tn-jacks-creek

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 3.3 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. 2014 Condition assessmentListed as Cabo (Chester) among extant Tennessee fire towers in the table dated March 26, 2014Source: npgallery.nps.gov
  2. 2023 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered August 6, 2023 by Jason Johns (NHLR); site visit recorded as 8/5/23Source: nhlr.org
  3. 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.

Jack's Creek Lookout Tower stands in Chester County, Tennessee.1 The Register added it in August 2023 and describes a 60-foot Aermotor LS-40 at an elevation of 648 feet.1 We did not find a build date.

The state's list gives a Chester County tower the name Cabo and the number 8-15.2 A 2014 table in the National Register document lists a tower called Cabo as extant.3 We take Cabo and Jack's Creek to be the same tower, though no source we read says so outright. The state's list gives Cabo an elevation of 663 feet, which differs from the Register's figure.2,1

The Register's 2023 visit found the tower still on the site, alongside a small office, a housing trailer and a Quonset hut.1 It says the state forestry division no longer owns the site and lists it as privately owned.1 The same entry still names the division as administrator, so the record is mixed.1 We read the ownership note as the current position.

We found no account of who staffed the tower or of any fire it watched. Because the land is privately owned, nothing we read suggests public access.1 Anyone interested should ask the owner before going onto the property.

  1. Jack's Creek Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/tn/jacks-creek-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Tennessee Lookout Towers, Tennessee Landforms, https://tnlandforms.us/towers/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. 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). ↩

Photos

Photo of Jack's Creek Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Jack's Creek Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Jack's Creek Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Jack's Creek Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Jack's Creek Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Jack's Creek Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Jack's Creek Lookout Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) 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
  2. tnlandforms.us fire lookout towers (Tom Dunigan) -- GA, NC, TN 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
  3. 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

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