Built in 1935. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
From the record
“Barfoot Lookout Complex was a forest lookout situated on Buena Vista Peak in the Douglas Ranger District in the Chiricahua Mountains in Cochise County, Arizona. It is hypothesized to have been built by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps.”
Wikipedia article Barfoot Lookout Complex, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 76 National Register listings published here for Cochise County · listed in 1988 · category: Building · built in 1935.
Also known as. National Forest Fire Lookouts in the Southwestern Region TR
Census division. Elfrida
When was it built? 1935
National Register reference number.87002463- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
96 since 1992
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 96 fires within 5 miles of Barfoot Lookout Complex
between 1992 and 2020, burning about 30,320 acres in total. 76 started naturally. 2 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
76
Recreation and ceremony
11
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
3
Arson/incendiarism
2
Smoking
2
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
44 workings within 5 miles of Barfoot Lookout Complex: 29 past producers, 10 prospects, 4 producers, 1 occurrence.
4 still produce. What was taken out: Silver, Tungsten, Lead, Zinc, Copper. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Portal, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 1999 and 2025: 3 flash flood, 2 hail, 1 thunderstorm wind.
The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Two to four inches of rain in 3 hours in the southern Chiricahua Mountains caused flash flooding of streams over and west of the mountains. Two motorists in one vehicle were stuck in floodwaters east of McNeal on Davis Rd. near milepost 30. An elderly man attempted to drive through waters to rescue them when his vehicle was swept downstream. He was rescued but not before suffering hypothermia from being in the cold water.
Estimated thunderstorm wind gusts of 60 mph occurred southeast of Portal. A Desert Research Institute sensor at Rodeo, NM observed a gust to 60 mph at 1900MST.
Three inches of rain in themountains near Portal caused creeks in the area to rise rapidly. A campground became flooded forcing the evacuation of several campers.
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
5 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.
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.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.