Tall Peak Fire Tower

Built in 1938. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.

From the record

“The Tall Peak Fire Tower is a historic fire tower in Ouachita National Forest. It is located at the top of Tall Peak in the southwestern part of the national forest in Polk County, Arkansas.”
Wikipedia article Tall Peak Fire Tower, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 33 National Register listings published here for Polk County · listed in 1993 · category: Building · built in 1938.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. FS Rd. 38A NW of Athens, Caney Cr. Wildlife Management Area, Ouachita NF, Athens
When was it listed? October 1993
Category. building
Also known as. Facilities Constructed by the CCC in Arkansas MPS
Township. Gap Springs township
When was it built? 1938
National Register reference number. 93001077 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

30 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 30 fires within 5 miles of Tall Peak Fire Tower between 1992 and 2020, burning about 1,296 acres in total. 12 started naturally. 6 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	12
Arson/incendiarism	6
Debris and open burning	5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Smoking	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 September 2006	Arson/incendiarism	5.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
21 September 1992	Natural	under an acre	Ouachita National Forest	not named
20 September 2000	Arson/incendiarism	1.5 acres	Ouachita National Forest	MISSOURI MTN.
27 August 1999	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
27 August 1999	Natural	under an acre	Ouachita National Forest	GAP
24 August 2000	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	31 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
23 August 2011	Natural	under an acre	Ouachita National Forest	SOUTH NICHOLS
19 August 2007	Natural	4.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in Polk County

Mines and quarries near this property

9 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 9 workings within 5 miles of Tall Peak Fire Tower: 7 past producers, 2 prospects. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Manganese, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Slate, Dimension, Barium-Barite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Avant & Heath	Slate, Dimension	Past Producer
He Mountain Coon Creek	Barium-Barite	Past Producer
National Slate Co Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Tom Heath Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
E S White Prospect	Manganese	Prospect
Harold Bullard Prospects	Manganese	Prospect
Harris Creek Group	Manganese	Past Producer
Parson	Manganese	Past Producer
Shady Lake Mill	Manganese	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Polk County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Shady Lake CCC Bridge #2	1.6 miles	2010
Shady Lake Caretaker's House	1.7 miles	1993
Bard Springs Dam No. 1	1.8 miles	1993
Shady Lake Recreation Area Historic District	1.8 miles	2015
Bard Springs Bathhouse	1.8 miles	1993
Shady Lake Bathhouse	1.9 miles	1993

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 93001077 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Polk County	All 33 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.