Bluff Mountain Tower Site

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Status: Former Lookout
Elevation: 3,372 feet
prom 1,252 feet
State: Virginia
County: Rockbridge and Amherst
AT Access: trail over the top
Mile Marker: 796.2

If you have more information about this site, please contact me.

Ottie Cline Powell Memorial

Also at this summit is the spot where Ottie Cline Powell died. He was just 4 years old and had wondered off the wrong way from his school. He had traveled several miles so he was not located until 5 months later beside a tree at this summit. It is believed he died from a storm the first night he was out.

Around 1917, the U.S. Forest Service built a fire lookout tower on Bluff Mountain.

In 1932, it was announced in a newspaper that a new lookout tower would be constructed on Bluff Mountain saying the Bluff mountain structure would be a forty-foot steel tower with a 14 x 14 foot cabin on top for living quarters and an observatory.

Only the footings remain today.

Ottie Cline memorial

Route of the AT over Bluff Mountain

1965 USGS, 1971 updated

1950 USGS, 1958 updated

Bluff Mountain Lookout Footings

Bluff Mountain Lookout Tower July 1969

Tower sign