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Fire lookout · Fentress County, Tennessee

Wright Mountain Lookout

Fentress County lookout: a wooden tower built in 1942 by the Division of Forestry, replaced in 1960 by an 80-foot Aermotor; now privately owned and restored.

Private land

No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. Privately owned, per the Register. No public access rule or rental listing found.

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 tower80-foot Aermotor tower with 7x7-foot cabThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1942
Height
Unknown
Elevation
1,778 ft (542 m)
Agency
Kent D. Taylor, Owner (private)
Land
Unknown
Location
Fentress County, Tennessee
Coordinates
36.49969, −84.98000
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-tn-wright-mountain

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 3.1 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. 1942 BuiltFirst lookout on the mountain: a wooden tower built by the Tennessee Division of ForestrySource: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1942 and 1960
  3. 1960 Built'Built' field on NHLR detail pageSource: NHLR register entry
  4. 1960 Replaced by a new structureReplaced by an 80-foot Aermotor tower with a 7x7-foot cabSource: nhlr.org
  5. No record between 1960 and 2011
  6. 2011 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered September 17, 2011; nominated by Kent D. TaylorSource: nhlr.org
  7. 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.

Wright Mountain in Fentress County has carried two lookout towers, according to the Register.1 The first lookout was a wooden tower the Division of Forestry erected in 1942.1 A lookout-history site lists the tower under Fentress County and the Division of Forestry.2

In 1960 the Division replaced the wooden tower with an 80-foot Aermotor tower that has a 7-by-7-foot cab, and that is the tower the Register describes today.1 The Register gives September 17, 2011 as the registration date, with Kent D. Taylor as nominator.1

The Register now lists Taylor as the owner and says the tower is privately owned and restored.1 It does not say when ownership changed, and I found no date for the restoration in the sources I read.1 Tennessee Landforms still lists the tower as standing.3

I found no public access rule and no rental listing in the sources I read. The Register describes the tower as privately owned, so treat it as private property: do not climb it without the owner's permission.1

  1. Wright Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/tn/wright-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Wright Mountain, Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/wright-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Tennessee Lookout Towers, Tennessee Landforms (tnlandforms.us), https://tnlandforms.us/towers/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Wright Mountain Lookout
Photo: 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, 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. 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.