Fire lookout · Lauderdale County, Tennessee
Ripley Lookout Tower
An 80-ft Aermotor fire lookout on Joe Crihfield Rd. near Ripley, TN, built for the TN Division of Forestry around 1970; NRHP-listed in 2020 and listed as standing.
- Standing
- Access unknown
- Verified
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Access unknown
We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower80-foot Aermotor tower with a parallel internal staircaseThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1964
- Height
- 80 ft (24.4 m)
- Elevation
- 520 ft (159 m)
- Agency
- Tennessee Division of Forestry
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Lauderdale County, Tennessee
- Coordinates
- 35.84972, −89.51750
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-tn-ripley
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 2.8 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
- 1964 Built'Built' field on NHLR detail pageSource: NHLR register entry
- 1970 BuiltConstructed 1970 per TDF files as quoted in the NRHP MPS; Wikipedia says around 1970; NHLR says made sometime after 1964Sources: npgallery.nps.gov, en.wikipedia.org, nhlr.org
- No record between 1970 and 2020
- 2020 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesAdded to the National Register of Historic Places March 9, 2020, No. 100004684Source: en.wikipedia.org
- 2023 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered January 1, 2023 as US 1714, TN 47; 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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Ripley Fire Lookout Tower stands on Joe Crihfield Road near Ripley, in Lauderdale County, Tennessee.1,2 At 80 feet, the tower is an Aermotor design, and the register notes its parallel internal staircase.1 Aermotor, a Chicago firm, is named by a National Park Service document as one of the leading steel fire tower makers of the early 1900s.3
The sources do not agree on when it was built. The register puts manufacture after 1964, based on a name badge that names Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.1 The Tennessee Division of Forestry's own files, as cited in a National Register document, say the tower went up in 1970, among the last the division built.3 Wikipedia gives around 1970.2
I found no record of who staffed the tower or which fires it watched over.
The tower was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020, as number 100004684.2 The register lists it as US 1714, TN 47. It was nominated by Jason Johns and registered on January 1, 2023.1 The tnlandforms list shows it as standing.4
The register describes the site as an active Tennessee Forestry location.1 None of the sources says whether the public can visit or climb the tower. Please do not climb it, and check with the Division of Forestry before going to the site.
- Ripley Lookout Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/tn/ripley-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Ripley Fire Lookout Tower, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripley_Fire_Lookout_Tower (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Tennessee Division of Forestry Fire Lookout Towers MPS, National Park Service (NPGallery), https://npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Text/64501237.pdf (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Tennessee towers list, tnlandforms, https://tnlandforms.us/towers/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) 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
- tnlandforms.us fire lookout towers (Tom Dunigan) -- GA, NC, TN (opens another site) 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
- Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) (opens another site) Gave us: register numbers, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, staffing, 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 1714 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Tennessee Division of Forestry Fire Lookout Towers MPS (National Park Service (NPGallery)) (opens another site)
- Wikipedia: Ripley Fire Lookout Tower (opens another site)
- Ripley (tnlandforms.us (Tom Dunigan)) (opens another site)
- Wikidata item Q96178417 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.