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Fire lookout · Fayette County, West Virginia

Mann Mountain Fire Tower

Fayette County tower built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935, with a stone house and wall; registered in 1993 as the first lookout registered in West Virginia.

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
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower45-foot Blaw-Knox steel tower with a 7 by 7 foot cabThe design: Blaw-Knox
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1935
Height
45 ft (13.7 m)
Elevation
3,335 ft (1,017 m)
Agency
West Virginia Division of Natural Resources
Land
Unknown
Location
Fayette County, West Virginia
Coordinates
37.92750, −80.97027
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wv-mann-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 3.2 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. 1935 BuiltBuilt by the Civilian Conservation Corps as a 45-foot Blaw-Knox steel tower with a 7 by 7 foot cab; living quarters and wall of native stoneSources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1935 and 1950
  3. 1950 AlteredA 1950 Raleigh Register item, quoted by Forest Lookouts, reports the access road completed and the tower electrifiedSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1961 EventA 1961 Raleigh Register item, quoted by Forest Lookouts, reports a state crash program employing men to improve the road and maintain the tower and observer's cabinSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1961 and 1993
  6. 1993 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered March 10, 1993 as US 55, WV 1Source: 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.

Mann Mountain sits on state land in Fayette County, at about 3,335 feet of elevation.1 The National Historic Lookout Register calls it the first lookout registered in West Virginia, and says the Civilian Conservation Corps built it in 1935.1 The tower was a 45-foot Blaw-Knox steel structure with a 7 by 7 foot cab.1,2 Stone also went into the living quarters and the wall around the tower. The register calls the house a stone ground house.1,2

A 1950 newspaper item, quoted by the Forest Lookouts site, reports that the road to the tower was finished and the tower now had electricity.2 A 1961 item describes a state crash program that employed several men to improve the road and maintain the tower and its observer's cabin.2

The register says the Division of Natural Resources administered the tower, with the Division of Forestry as a cooperator. The Forest Lookouts page names the Division of Forestry as the agency, so the two sources disagree about who ran it.1,2

The state's encyclopedia says the forest fire towers were closed in 1990. I found no source that gives the date this tower stopped being used.3 The West Virginia list still marks Mann Mountain as standing.4 That same list includes Gartin (Mann) Knob, a different standing tower in Lincoln County, so do not confuse the two.4 I found no current road, gate or visiting information. Check with the managing agency before you go.

  1. Mann Mountain Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/wv/mann-mountain-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Mann Mountain, Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/mann-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Fire Towers, e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia, https://wvencyclopedia.org/entries/2115 (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. West Virginia lookout list by county, Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org), https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/wv/wv-co/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Mann Mountain Fire Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) 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
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists 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
  3. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: height, 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, height, 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.