Fire lookout · Overton County, Tennessee
Twinton Fire Lookout Tower
Also known as Colliers Rock Lookout Tower
Overton County, TN: 80-ft Aermotor MC-39 lookout built by the CCC in 1933 for the state forestry program; NRHP-listed 2021; still 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 towerAermotor MC-39 standard plan; 80 ft steel truss tower with a 7 ft square cabThe design: Aermotor MC-39
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1933
- Height
- 80 ft (24.4 m)
- Elevation
- 1,863 ft (568 m)
- Agency
- Tennessee Division of Forestry
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Overton County, Tennessee
- Coordinates
- 36.29129, −85.13875
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-tn-twinton
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
- 1933 BuiltConstructed ca. 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps as part of the Division of Forestry fire-management programSource: tn.gov
- No record between 1933 and 2021
- 2021 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesListed June 28, 2021 as MP100006707, under the Tennessee Division of Forestry Fire Lookout Towers multiple-property listingSource: tn.gov
- 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 Civilian Conservation Corps built the Twinton Fire Lookout Tower around 1933, as part of the Division of Forestry's new fire-management program.1,2 The tower sits at an elevation of 1,863 feet, just northwest of Threet Road in Overton County.1 It is an eighty-foot steel truss structure of the Aermotor MC-39 standard plan, topped by a seven-foot square cab.1 Multi-light windows ring the cab and give a 360-degree view.1
The registration form describes a contract with the landowner that let the state use the property for fire detection, reach the tower, and run a telephone line to it.1 The form also ticks "Public – State" under ownership, which does not sit easily with that contract.1 If the state abandons the property, the land title will revert to its original owners, but the structures stay state property.1
No source we read names who staffed the tower or any fire it watched. The form ends the tower's period of significance in 1971, roughly when Tennessee's lookout towers were largely abandoned for other ways of spotting fires.1 It also says the tower has not been altered since it was built.1
As of its 2021 listing, the form gives its current use as an emergency fire lookout.1 A radio and cellular tower went up about forty-five feet away in 2014.1 The tower was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 28, 2021.1 The form also gives the name Colliers Rock Lookout Tower.1
A gravel drive, about a tenth of a mile long, leads in from Threet Road.1 The sources do not say whether the cab is open to visitors. Because the form lists the tower's current use as an emergency fire lookout, treat the site as a state facility, and ask the Division of Forestry before you go.
- Twinton Fire Lookout Tower, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (NPS Form 10-900), Tennessee Historical Commission, https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/historicalcommission/archive/national-register/2021-nr-listings/thc_nr_twinton-fire-lookout-tower_nomination.pdf (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Twinton, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/twinton.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Sources
- tnlandforms.us fire lookout towers (Tom Dunigan) -- GA, NC, TN (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, status, 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) Gave us: agency, 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
- Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) (opens another site) Gave us: height, register numbers, dates, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, agency, 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
- Twinton Fire Lookout Tower, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (NPS Form 10-900) (Tennessee Historical Commission) (opens another site)
- Twinton (tnlandforms.us (Tom Dunigan)) (opens another site)
- Twinton (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
- Wikidata item Q107407006 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.