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Fire lookout · Nacagdoches County, Texas

Chireno

Texas Forest Service Lookout Tower No. 20 at Chireno, Nacogdoches County; table records removal in 1960 and a move to Shepherd (Loc 2); no current-site source.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as Gone on firelookout.org; the table records removal in 1960, with the tower moved to Shepherd (Loc 2)

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerFour-legged steel structure with a glass-enclosed cab (NGS station description); table lists model Aer MC-40The design: Aermotor
Built of
Not recorded
Built
Unknown
Height
110 ft (33.5 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Texas Forest Service
Land
Unknown
Location
Nacagdoches County, Texas
Coordinates
31.50825, −94.42678
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-tx-chireno

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its 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.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and its recorded height.

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. 1934 EventTable's date column gives 1934; no source states the build year (see resolved_conflicts)Source: firelookout.org
  2. No record between 1934 and 1949
  3. 1949 EventNGS station described in 1949 as Chireno Lookout Tower 20 of the state forest serviceSource: centraluslookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1960 MovedTable lists the tower removed from Chireno in 1960 and moved to Shepherd (Loc 2)Source: firelookout.org
  5. No record between 1960 and 1988
  6. 1988 RemovedTable lists Shepherd (Loc 2), the site it moved to, as removed in 1988Source: firelookout.org
  7. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Texas Forest Service ran a steel lookout at Chireno, in Nacogdoches County, about 4.5 miles southwest of the town.1 A survey station description calls it Lookout Tower No. 20 of the state forest service.1 The survey says it stood on four steel legs, about 110 feet high, with a glass-walled cab on top.1

The build year is unclear. The table's date column gives 1934.2 The survey's station name ends in 1949, and the station was described that year.1 These sources do not say which year the tower went up, so I have not picked one. The table lists the tower at 100 feet, not the survey's 110, and I have used the survey's height.1,2

The table says the tower was removed from Chireno in 1960 and moved to Shepherd (Loc 2), about five miles southeast of Shepherd on Farm Road 225.2 That site's entry gives 1960 as its build year and 1988 as its removal year.2 The Texas lookout list marks the Chireno site as gone.3

Nothing I read describes what remains at the Chireno site today, or at Shepherd. Nothing I read says whether the public can reach either one.

  1. Chireno, National Geodetic Survey station description, Forest Lookouts (centraluslookouts.weebly.com), https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/chireno.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. TX expanded, Texas lookout tower table, firelookout.org, https://firelookout.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/TX-expanded.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Texas Lookouts, alphabetical list, firelookout.org, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/tx/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: height, agency, links centraluslookouts.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
  3. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.