Although I was born and raised in Illinois, and live in Illinois, I’ve always been more interested in Indiana’s lookout towers. But Illinois has towers and tower sites too!
The majority of the Illinois tower sites are in the far southern part of the state, mostly in the Shawnee National Forest area. One old official map shows 16 tower sites in Shawnee, but there were more towers than that in the southern part of Illinois. (See picture below.)
Here’s the list of Illinois towers on the FFLA website.
Standing towers in Illinois
I believe there are four standing towers in Illinois. I have been to the first two:
Trigg Tower in Shawnee National Forest is standing and is open to climb. Only the bottom half of the tower still stands, and it has an observation platform on the top. The view is great and it’s worth a visit. Official page. NHLR page. This tower is found on the Glendale quad topo.
Trail of Tears State Forest has a standing tower; it’s on their map. My brother and I visited this site in May 2025. This tower is not in good shape, and definitely cannot be climbed. It is surrounded by a fence. NHLR page. This tower is on the Jonesboro quad topo (as is the old Atwood tower site.) You’ll see it named Union, and Trail of Tears.
There’s a tower near Danville at Forest Glen Forest Preserve. I haven’t been there. I don’t know, this might be an observation tower but not a fire tower. The FFLA website describes this one as a “replica”.
There’s a standing tower at Big River State Forest near Keithsburg Illinois. I haven’t been there.
Shawnee National Forest map
Note that Union aka Trail of Tears is not on this map, indicating that it was a state forest tower, not a national forest tower.