FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Sussex County, New Jersey

Edison Fire Tower Site

Sussex County, New Jersey, steel lookout built about 1919-20; removed 1935-36, with its top and cab rebuilt as Greystone Station, still active at 92 ft.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed 1935-1936; its top section and cab went to the Greystone Station tower. A register photo captioned 'Foundation' suggests footings remain.

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
Cab on a towerSteel lookout tower; the register calls it a 47-foot Aermotor towerThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1919
Height
45 ft (13.7 m)
Elevation
1,368 ft (417 m)
Agency
New Jersey Forest Fire Service
Land
Unknown
Location
Sussex County, New Jersey
Coordinates
41.05959, −74.57519
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-nj-edison

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 its recorded height.

Downloads about 3.8 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. 1919 BuiltRegister says circa 1919; the 1919-20 report says in service since July 15; a 1923 item says erected in 1920Sources: firetower.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1919 and 1935
  3. 1935 RemovedRegister gives removed 1935-1936Source: firetower.org
  4. 1936 Removed'Removed' field on FFLOS detail page: "1935-1936".Source: FFLOS register entry
  5. 1937 MovedTop section and cab moved to form Greystone Station fire tower; NHLR says the NJ Forest Fire Service built it in 1937 on an extended base; 92 ftSources: firetower.org, nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org
  6. No record between 1937 and 2020
  7. 2020 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered March 24, 2020Source: firetower.org
  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.

The Edison fire tower stood in the Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area in Sussex County, New Jersey, at 1,368 feet (417 m).1 The New Jersey Forest Fire Service administered it.1

The tower went up around 1919 or 1920 on New Jersey Zinc Company property, with the company's help.1,2 A state annual report for 1919-20 says it had been in service since July 15.2 A 1923 newspaper item gives 1920 as the year it was erected, and describes what could be seen from it, including the Kittatinny Ridge beyond the Wallkill Valley.2

Sources disagree on its height. The register gives 47 feet for the Aermotor tower, the 1919-20 report gives 45 feet, and the 1923 item says fifty feet.1,2

The register says the tower was removed in 1935-1936.1 In 1937 it was moved and built up with more supports, and it became the Greystone Fire Tower.1 The New Jersey Forest Fire Service built Greystone Station in 1937, reusing the Edison tower's top section and metal cab on an extended base, and it now stands 92 feet tall.3,4

Greystone sits on Union Hill in Morris County, and the National Historic Lookout Register says it is in active service.3 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register says Greystone was still an active tower as of 2019.1

At the Edison site, the register includes a photo captioned "Foundation," which suggests footings remain.1 I found no other source that describes the site today.

  1. Edison Fire Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/nj/edison-fire-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Edison, FOREST LOOKOUTS (Eastern US lookouts), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/edison.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Greystone Station Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/nj/greystone-station-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. List of New Jersey Forest Fire Service fire towers, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Jersey_Forest_Fire_Service_fire_towers (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Foundation
FoundationPhoto: Edward Seifert, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, what it is built of, status, register numbers, agency, 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: height, links easternuslookouts.weebly.com · No licence stated; facts only (county, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, status, height, design hints, register links). The site's own historical quotes, newspaper citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, visiting details, 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.