Fire lookout · Hardy County, West Virginia
Elkhorn
Fire tower near Petersburg announced in 1929 and staffed in 1937 as Elkhorn, Hardy County; FFLA lists it standing. Name, county and later history unclear.
- 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
- Staffed during fire season (as of 1937)
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- State game and fish commission (construction in 1929)
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Hardy County, West Virginia
- Coordinates
- 38.92887, −79.04576
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-wv-elkhorn
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 3.5 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
- 1929 EventConstruction announced for a fire tower near Petersburg, Grant County, to start at once; completion not foundSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- 1937 StaffedM.M. Friddle and Vance Belt stationed at the fire tower on Elkhorn for the fire seasonSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- 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.
Forest Lookouts quotes a May 1929 Charleston Gazette item reporting that the state game and fish commission would begin work on a fire tower near Petersburg, in Grant County, right away.1 We did not find when it was finished.
By April 1937 the tower was staffed for the fire season.1 Forest Lookouts also quotes the Cumberland Evening Times, which named M.M. Friddle and Vance Belt as stationed at the fire tower on Elkhorn.1 The same item named the Big Ridge tower in Lost River State Park as Hardy County's other fire tower, which suggests Elkhorn was in Hardy County too.1
The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists a standing tower named Elkhorn in Hardy County, at 38.92887 and -79.04576.2 We found no later report on its condition, its staff, or any fire it watched.
A county history by E. L. Judy, dated 1951, uses Elk Horn Rock as a landmark on a boundary that runs to the top of the rock and then along the mountain to the Hardy and Pendleton line.3 It does not mention the tower, so we cannot say whether the rock and the Elkhorn tower are the same site.3
- Elk Horn Rock, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/elk-horn-rock.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- West Virginia Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/wv/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- History of Grant and Hardy Counties, West Virginia, E. L. Judy, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/stream/history-of-grant-and-hardy-counties-west-va-ocr/History%20of%20Grant%20and%20Hardy%20Counties%20West%20VA%20OCR_djvu.txt (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, status, agency, staffing, 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
- Elk Horn Rock (Forest Lookouts) (opens another site)
- History of Grant and Hardy Counties, West Virginia (Internet Archive (E. L. Judy, 1951)) (opens another site)
- FFLA West Virginia lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.