Here are some of the sources of information and tools I have used to research Indiana fire towers.
Maps with tower sites by county
Posted sign at actual fire towers – the Colorful map
Historical district map – the Black and White Map
US Forest Service website
This Lookout Towers page is the place to start. This page has a long list of towers both standing and removed. This is an excellent primary source, although there are details on here that I don’t understand yet.
Forest Service website has pages about specific Indiana towers:
US Forest Service Motor Vehicle Use Maps: For example, look at the Lost River Unit MVUM and you can see the Bryantsville tower location is on/near a forest road. Not particularly useful.
Outdoor Indiana
Outdoor Indiana is a mostly monthly magazine published by the state, starting in 1934 and still being published today in 2024. This is an incredible source for the history of towers in the state forests and state parks. I have used this extensively on my History page.
Indiana University Digital Library page for Outdoor Indiana
The May-June 2013 issue of Outdoor Indiana has a long story about the towers. (I have a PDF copy but I don’t know where you can get this online.)
Tower organizations and experts
Forest Fire Lookout Association: http://www.firelookout.org. Teena Ligman has been the Indiana chapter chair for many years — many of the pictures and facts that I have collected have come through her years of research.
National Historic Lookout Register: http://www.nhlr.org/ – This site has 9 Indiana towers.
Ron Kemnow’s list online: https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/indiana.html. This is a great list, particularly because he has pulled quotes from local newspapers about the construction of the towers. This list is very well-researched, and to me it seems to match the Forest Service list closely. There are a couple items I don’t understand or can’t confirm, and not every page has a map, but I turn to this list often.
Topographical maps
The topo maps came from this website: https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/. Topo maps from different years and sizes are available, which is critical because many towers only appear on one or two editions. “US Topo” maps more recent than 2000 have been useless because they don’t show any towers, even obvious public ones.
I mostly rely on the 1:24000 maps, and those are mostly what’s seen on this site. These are the most detailed maps. The 1:24000 maps are also known as 7.5-minute. If I don’t say otherwise, this is what I’m referring to.
There are also 1:62500, 1:100000, and 1:250000 maps covering Indiana. The Vincennes and Indianapolis 1:250000 topos are pretty interesting with a lot of towers marked.
Another topo map resource online is https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/topoexplorer/index.html.
Fire finders
There is an existing fire finder at the nature center at Morgan-Monroe State Forest. Based on its map, it must be the fire finder from Skyline. There is at least one other tower, the Houston tower, visible on its map.
Brown County State Park has a fire finder at their nature center, they told me on the phone, but I haven’t seen it yet.
Not all fire finders are Osborne fire finders, and I’m not 100% clear on the concept, so apologies if I get that detail wrong anywhere on this site.
State park and Trail maps
National Geographic Hoosier National Forest maps (my own dedicated page)
Indiana Geological and Water Survey has published 5 maps featuring hiking trails. These maps are great maps, except they are inconsistent and incomplete about the tower sites. They helped me find the Salem tower. Some towers appear on these maps:
- TM01 Deam Wilderness: Hickory Ridge tower mapped and labeled
- TM02 Clark & Jackson-Washington: Washington tower labeled, Henryville tower mapped but unlabeled
- TM03 Starve Hollow: Skyline tower mapped and labeled
- TM04 Brown County: Weed Patch tower mapped but unlabeled
- TM05 Morgan-Monroe: Mason Ridge tower is missing from this map
IDNR State Park and State Forest pamphlets: Standing towers are typically described and mapped on IDNR State Park and State Forest pamphlets available online or at park facilities.
- Brown County State Park: tower site icon; legend says “Fire/Lookout Tower”
- Ferdinand State Forest: tower site icon on trails 1 and 5; legend says “Fire Tower”
- Harrison-Crawford State Forest: shows the O’Bannon Woods “Fire Tower”
- Lincoln State Park: tower site icon on trail 1; legend says “Fire Tower”
- McCormick’s Creek State Park: tower site icon on trail 4; legend says “Fire Tower”
- Monroe Lake: shows “scenic sites” for Hickory Ridge and Dutch Ridge Lookout (!) on 2011 and 2019 editions
- Morgan-Monroe State Forest: various trail maps show the Lookout Tower
- O’Bannon Woods State Park: tower site icon; legend says “Fire Tower”
- Ouabache State Park map: tower site icon near trail 4; legend says “Fire Tower”
- Tippecanoe River State Park: tower site icon on trail 1; legend says “Fire Tower”
- Versailles State Park: map shows “Old Fire Tower Road” with a loop at the southern end that corresponds to the old tower site.
Google Earth Pro (not just Google Earth) is a fantastic tool for accessing satellite views from different years.
Google Street View is also helpful. My brother and I have used it to research Cincinnati and West Fork in particular.
I have put my list of towers into a Google Maps map which can be found at: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1LEQZBM9XCKZ2VOKw_ywctMQHXMEl5yg&usp=sharing
National Geodetic Survey
My page with a list of NGS marks for Indiana towers
NGS Map – You can find many tower sites just by searching or scrolling on the map. You can then click on them to open up the datasheets for tower and nearby marks.
State library collections
Indiana State Library has digital collections. One collection I like is the Indiana County Maps Atlases and Plat Books. Specifically I recommend the 1936 county ‘cultural’ maps (not the road maps). These show many Fire Towers in at least Clark, Crawford, Floyd, Martin, and Pike Counties. Credit for these is: Map Collection, Indiana Division, Indiana State Library.
Other
Living New Deal site has information about many CCC sites and constructions, including lookouts.