Fire lookout · Sawyer County, Wisconsin
Hayward Lookout
100-foot Aermotor tower in Sawyer County, WI; DNR planned to end its fire use in 2016; county expressed interest in two towers; NHLR-registered 2017.
- 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. County article (written after the DNR decommissioned its towers) says the two tower sites it discussed are secured with fences and locks; it is not confirmed that either is the Hayward tower. No current access source found.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower100-foot Aermotor tower with a US Forest Service-style stairwayThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 1,535 ft (468 m)
- Agency
- Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Sawyer County, Wisconsin
- Coordinates
- 46.00212, −91.40749
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-wi-hayward
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 3.8 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
- 1940 Condition assessmentTower survey dated 1940 shows a wooden stairway style tower in place; the sources do not say whether it was this towerSource: nhlr.org
- No record between 1940 and 2016
- 2016 ClosedDNR planned to take its fire towers, including Hayward, out of service in 2016 (year from the DNR article's own text)Source: apg-wi.com
- 2017 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered June 28, 2017 as US 1217, WI 23Source: 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Hayward Lookout is a 100-foot Aermotor tower in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, with a stairway in the style of the U.S. Forest Service.1 The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources administers it.1 The National Historic Lookout Register says the year of construction is unknown. It also mentions a 1940 tower survey that suggests a wooden stairway tower was standing at that time, but the sources do not say whether that was this structure.1
The sources read do not name anyone who staffed the Hayward tower or list the fires it watched. A Sawyer County Record article quotes Trent Marty, director of the DNR's bureau of forest protection, saying that 60 towers were manned the year before the article ran, typically for 17 days in the spring.2
In 2016 the DNR planned to take 72 fire towers out of service. Five of them were in Sawyer County, and Hayward was one of those five.2 A recent structural assessment judged the towers unsafe; most went up in the 1930s or 1940s.2
Afterward, Sawyer County told the DNR it was interested in taking over two towers on county forest sites. One is described as "off Highway B four miles east of Hayward," and the article gives that tower no name.3 An earlier article places the Hayward tower "south of Hayward," so the two descriptions do not clearly agree, and linking the county's tower to the Hayward Lookout is an inference.2,3 The county's forest administrator outlined three options: use the towers for its own communications equipment, lease them to a telecom company, or have them removed.3
The firelookout.org listing shows the tower as standing.4 The county article says the two tower sites it discussed are secured with fences and locks. That describes the situation after the DNR decommissioned its towers, not necessarily today, and it is unclear whether it covers the Hayward tower. No source read gives current access rules, and the record marks access as unknown. Anyone planning a visit should check with the DNR or Sawyer County first, and should stay off a tower that is fenced or locked.
- Hayward Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/wi/hayward-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- "DNR will discontinue fire towers in 2016," Sawyer County Record (apg-wi.com), https://www.apg-wi.com/sawyer_county_record/sports/outdoors/dnr-will-discontinue-fire-towers-in-2016/article_99555dd8-b485-11e5-ae50-e70e7acc48a6.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- "County considers uses for former DNR fire towers," Sawyer County Record (apg-wi.com), https://www.apg-wi.com/sawyer_county_record/news/local/county-considers-uses-for-former-dnr-fire-towers/article_61d01fc2-070c-11e6-9122-bbd94888350c.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Wisconsin lookout listing, firelookout.org, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/wi/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, 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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
- OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures (opens another site) Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, 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
- NHLR register entry US 1217 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- DNR will discontinue fire towers in 2016 (Sawyer County Record (apg-wi.com)) (opens another site)
- County considers uses for former DNR fire towers (Sawyer County Record (apg-wi.com)) (opens another site)
- FFLA Wisconsin lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- OpenStreetMap node 353905605 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.