FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Henry County, Tennessee

Puryear Fire Tower

Also known as Nelson

An 80-foot Aermotor LS-40 in Henry County, still state-owned but surrounded by private land; build date unknown.

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. Still owned by the state but surrounded by private property; the register describes no public access route.

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

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor LS-40The design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
Unknown
Height
Unknown
Elevation
627 ft (191 m)
Agency
Tennessee Division of Forestry
Land
Unknown
Location
Henry County, Tennessee
Coordinates
36.40249, −88.29571
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-tn-puryear

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. 1976 EventListed on the Division's 1976 tower list as district-tower 8-6, under the name Nelson; link to Puryear not confirmedSource: tnlandforms.us
  2. No record between 1976 and 2023
  3. 2023 Condition assessmentRegister site visit dated January 28, 2023Source: nhlr.org
  4. 2023 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered with the National Historic Lookout Register on February 2, 2023Source: nhlr.org
  5. 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.

The National Historic Lookout Register lists the Puryear Fire Tower in Henry County as an 80-foot Aermotor LS-40, a design the Tennessee Division of Forestry built in large numbers.1,2 The Division administers it, and the register gives no build date.1

The LS-40 has a steel cab seven feet on each side, with an inside stairway that doubles back between two levels.2 Forest Service specifications and standard plans drawn from Aermotor windmills shaped its design.2 After the Second World War, the Division resumed building LS-40 and MC-39 towers until about 1970.2

Tennessee Landforms lists a tower called Nelson in Henry County, numbered 8-6 and standing.3 That number comes from a 1976 list of Division towers, so if Nelson is this tower, it was already listed in 1976. The match is not confirmed: the register gives an elevation of 627 feet, while Landforms gives 623 feet.1,3

The register records a site visit dated January 28, 2023, and says the state owns the tower, though private property surrounds it.1 Landforms adds that many towers have been taken down and that most sites are now private land.3 Because the land around it is private, this story does not suggest visiting or climbing the tower.1

We found no published history of its construction, staffing or fires, so those parts of its story remain unknown.

  1. Puryear Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/tn/puryear-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Tennessee Division of Forestry Fire Lookout Towers, 1933 to 1975, National Park Service (NPGallery), https://npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Text/64501237.pdf (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Tennessee Lookout Towers, Tennessee Landforms, https://tnlandforms.us/towers/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Puryear Fire 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, type, 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: 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, 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.