The Pequot Fire Lookout Tower stands on a hillcrest 1,378 feet above sea level, 70 feet higher than County Road 11 at the park entrance, and with its 100-foot cab floor it provides a commanding view whose protection zone ranges from 15 to 20 miles depending on topography and atmospheric conditions. This site was established in 1927 by the Minnesota Department of Conservation Forest Service, a forerunner of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The first tower here, built in 1927, was 80 feet tall and used a ladder to reach an octagonal cab. The current tower, the second on the site, was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935. Plans associated with it are dated 1932 and were modified in 1933 and 1934. Forestry documents differ on whether it was manufactured by the McClintic-Marshall Company or the Aermotor Company, two firms best known for wind-generated water pumps, and competing manufacturers often produced nearly identical tower designs for government forestry agencies. Fires spotted from the tower were located with an alidade, also called the Osborne Firefinder, developed by the U.S. Forest Service in 1911. A spotter aligned crosshairs on a column of smoke, then telephoned or radioed the compass reading, estimated smoke height, and estimated distance to the nearest ranger station. In Minnesota, fire lookouts began as perches in tall trees, then became wooden towers, and by the late 1920s most were galvanized steel structures, many repurposed from windmill towers and usually reached by ladders. Many second-generation lookout towers with square cabs and stairways were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. A 1939 inventory listed 120 fire lookout towers in Minnesota, but as airplanes increasingly took over fire spotting and communications improved, many towers went out of service; a history prepared by Minnesota Historical Lookout Towers lists 60 standing towers in the state today.