FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Bledsoe County, Tennessee

Summer City Fire Tower

Bledsoe County steel tower, believed Aermotor, beside a Tennessee Division of Forestry office; inventory lists it standing. Build date and staffing not found.

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. Cab is locked. The register says signage on the tower states visitors may climb it. The register entry dates from about 2019; check with the Division before climbing.

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

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerSteel tower, believed to be an Aermotor design, with a 7x7 ft cabThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Steel
Built
Unknown
Height
Unknown
Elevation
2,047 ft (624 m)
Agency
Tennessee Division of Forestry
Land
Unknown
Location
Bledsoe County, Tennessee
Coordinates
35.56430, −85.11540
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-tn-summer-city

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 3.0 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 EventTennessee inventory gives district-tower number 3-9, taken from a 1976 list of towers; this is a list number, not a build dateSource: tnlandforms.us
  2. No record between 1976 and 2019
  3. 2019 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered March 17, 2019 as US 1300, TN 35; nominated by Victoria OliverSource: nhlr.org
  4. 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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Summer City Fire Tower stands in Bledsoe County, Tennessee, at an elevation of about 624 metres (2,047 feet).1,2 The National Historic Lookout Register describes a steel tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab and gives Aermotor as its probable design.1 An office of the Tennessee Division of Forestry stands next to it.1 A regional lookout site lists it under the Division's District 3.3

The sources read do not say when the tower was built or by whom, and the register's detail list gives no construction year.1 The Tennessee tower inventory gives it district-tower number 3-9, taken from a 1976 list of towers, and marks it as standing.2 No source read names the people who staffed it or any fires it spotted.1,3

The register lists the tower as US 1300 and TN 35, registered on March 17, 2019, with Victoria Oliver as the nominator.1 Beyond the 1976 list and that registration, the sources do not record what happened to the tower.1,2

For visitors, the cab is kept locked, but the register reports a sign on the tower saying visitors may go up.1 Its photograph is dated May 2018 and credited to Victoria Oliver.1 The register entry dates from around 2019, so check with the Division of Forestry before going up, because the sign and the access may have changed.1

  1. Summer City Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/tn/summer-city-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Tennessee lookout towers, tnlandforms.us, https://tnlandforms.us/towers/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Summer City, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/summer-city.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

May 2018 photo
May 2018 photo (2018)Photo: Victoria Oliver, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: links easternuslookouts.weebly.com · No licence stated; facts only (county, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, status, height, design hints, register links). The site's own historical quotes, newspaper citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  4. 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.