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Fire lookout · Middlesex County, Massachusetts

Wakefield Harts Hill Tower Site

Middlesex County, MA: iron fire tower on Hart's Hill, first operated 1913, closed 1964 and dismantled 1968; register and postcard differ on height and who built it.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Dismantled in 1968; no source describes what remains on the site today

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Type unknown48-foot iron tower with spiral stairs and a 10'x10' cab (register); about 50 feet tall (postcard)
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1913
Height
Unknown
Elevation
230 ft (70 m)
Agency
Unknown
Land
Unknown
Location
Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Coordinates
42.49000, −71.06617
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ma-wakefield-harts-hill

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.3 MB of terrain data the first time.

Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1913 BuiltFirst operated in 1913 on town park land; postcard credits the state Forestry Department with building itSources: firetower.org, omeka-s.noblenet.org
  2. No record between 1913 and 1958
  3. 1958 AlteredNew cab builtSource: firetower.org
  4. 1964 ClosedClosed at the end of the fire seasonSource: firetower.org
  5. 1968 RemovedTower dismantledSource: firetower.org
  6. No record between 1968 and 2008
  7. 2008 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: September 3, 2008Source: FFLOS register entry
  8. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

Old maps of this spot

USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Hart's Hill is in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and it once carried a fire watch tower on its summit.1,2 The register describes it as a 48-foot iron tower with spiral stairs and a cab of 10 by 10 feet. It says the tower was built on town park land and first operated in 1913.1 The register also says the town of Wakefield contributed $350 toward its cost.1

A postcard in the Lucius Beebe Memorial Library's collection tells the story a little differently. It describes the tower as built at the summit in 1913 by the state Forestry Department, and it puts the height at about 50 feet.2 The register gives 48 feet, so the two sources differ slightly on height. The register credits the town with the land and the $350, while the postcard credits the state with building the tower.1,2 Both may be right, but no source we read explains the difference.

The register says a new cab was built in 1958. The tower closed at the end of the fire season in 1964, and it was dismantled in 1968.1 It has not stood since then.1

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on Hart's Hill today, or whether visitors may go up to the summit.1

  1. Wakefield Harts Hill Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ma/wakefield-harts-hill-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Hart's Hill tower, Wakefield, Mass., Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, NOBLE Digital Heritage, https://omeka-s.noblenet.org/s/wakefield/item/17333 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Photo of Wakefield Harts Hill Tower Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, status, register numbers, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story

More about this lookout elsewhere

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.