Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
From the record
“The Hillsboro Peak Lookout Tower and Cabin, in Gila National Forest in Sierra County, New Mexico, is a forest fire lookout tower and cabin with one or both built in 1925. The combination was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.”
Wikipedia article Hillsboro Peak Lookout Tower and Cabin, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 16 National Register listings published here for Sierra County · listed in 1988 · category: Structure.
Also known as. National Forest Fire Lookouts in the Southwestern Region TR
Census division. Truth or Consequences West
National Register reference number.87002475- 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
101 since 1992
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 101 fires within 5 miles of Hillsboro Peak Lookout Tower and Cabin
between 1992 and 2020, burning about 238,569 acres in total. 93 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
93
Recreation and ceremony
4
Arson/incendiarism
2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
1
Smoking
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
122 workings within 5 miles of Hillsboro Peak Lookout Tower and Cabin: 44 prospects, 41 past producers, 19 producers, 17 occurrences.
19 still produce. What was taken out: Manganese, Silver, Gold, Copper, Lead, Silver. 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
Hillsboro, the town this property stands in, in 15 storm reports between 1997 and 2022: 7 hail, 6 flash flood, 2 thunderstorm wind.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. 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.
Heavy thunderstorm rains estimated at more than 3 inches fell on the northeastern slope of the Black Mountains and caused excessive runoff and flash flooding in and around Hillsboro. All roads were flooded during the peak of the storm. Access to a nearby youth camp was cut off for days.
A severe thunderstorm produced hail up to quarter size which accumulated to a depth of 8 inches in Lake Valley. The weight of the hail partially collapsed the roof of a new home in the area.
Two vehicles were stuck near mile marker on Highway 27 south of Hillsboro. The road was closed due to rocks, debris and high water in low water crossings.
Thunderstorms produced heavy rains which caused serious flash flooding in the Hillsboro area. The heavy rains sent a wall of water down Percha Creek into the town of Hillsboro. Many roads were flooded, including highway 152 at the intersection of interstate 25 as well as highway 152 east of Kingston. The heavy rains also washed a vehicle up against a bridge guard rail when the wall of water caused the vehicle to stall while attempting to cross.
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.
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.
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