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Fire lookout · Morris County, New Jersey

Green Pond Mountain Lookout

1942 U.S. Army sentry and fire lookout on Picatinny Arsenal, Morris County; NHLR-registered 1994, closed to the public since 2001, slated for demolition in 2020.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. Public access closed since 2001, per the Register's 2020 visit report. The site is run by Picatinny Arsenal.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
No public visits. The tower sits inside Picatinny Arsenal, and access has been closed since 2001. Ask Picatinny before going near it.
Staffing
Not staffed (as of 2023-02)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower60-foot steel Aeromotor LS-40 tower with a catwalk around the cabThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Steel
Built
1942
Height
60 ft (18.3 m)
Elevation
1,240 ft (378 m)
Agency
Picatinny Arsenal
Land
State land
Location
Morris County, New Jersey
Coordinates
40.95005, −74.56887
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-nj-green-pond-mountain

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

Downloads about 3.4 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. 1942 BuiltBuilt by the U.S. Army as a sentry and fire-detection site overlooking the explosive assembly areaSources: nhlr.org, army.mil
  2. No record between 1942 and 1994
  3. 1994 FireApril 1994 forest fire stopped with a backfire at the towerSource: nhlr.org
  4. 1994 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered June 4, 1994 as US 83, NJ 4Source: nhlr.org
  5. 1994 RestoredCab restored in 1994; the two sources disagree on who did the work and whether it is completeSources: nhlr.org, army.mil
  6. 2001 ClosedPublic access closed since 2001, per the 2020 Register visit reportSource: nhlr.org
  7. No record between 2001 and 2020
  8. 2020 AbandonedAbandoned for use as a radio tower and sits dormant, per the August 2020 visit reportSource: nhlr.org
  9. 2020 EventCab lit for the first time in nearly 30 years, September 5, 2020, during the Lighting of the Fire TowersSource: army.mil
  10. 2023 Condition assessmentSeptember 2023 visit: cab deteriorated further; not likely to last more than five years at that rateSource: nhlr.org
  11. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Green Pond Mountain Lookout is a 60-foot steel tower on Picatinny Arsenal, the U.S. Army site in Morris County, New Jersey.1,2 The Army built it in 1942 as a sentry post with fire-detection duties, overlooking the fuse and explosive assembly area.1,2 Of New Jersey's fire towers, only this one has a catwalk around its cab.1,2 Wikipedia places it in Jefferson Township and warns readers not to confuse it with a separate grey metal tower, visible from Route 15.3

When it was in use, a lookout in the cab passed each fire's location and size to local dispatch.2 A backfire set at the tower stopped a forest fire in April 1994.1 A February 2023 Register visit report marks the tower as not staffed.1 The Register listed the tower on June 4, 1994.1

Accounts of the 1994 cab work differ. The Register says restoration was complete and that the New Jersey chapter of the Forest Fire Lookout Association had taken on rebuilding the cab.1 The Army article says the Register's volunteers restored the cab that year, and that the tower has since fallen back into disrepair.2

By 2020 the tower had been abandoned for use as a radio site and was slated for demolition.1 The state forest service had expressed interest in taking it over.1 The Army article adds that fire department leaders hoped to save it for its historic value.2

In September 2020 a lantern was lit inside the cab for the first time in nearly 30 years, as part of the annual Lighting of the Fire Towers.2 The Army said the Labor Day weekend lighting was planned as a yearly event.2 A September 2023 Register visit report said the cab had deteriorated further and was unlikely to last beyond five years at that pace.1

The site is closed to public visitors.1 The Register's 2020 visit report says public access has been closed since 2001, and the site is run by Picatinny Arsenal.1 Radio antennas are attached to the tower, and a 2020 visit report noted a cellular antenna pole within 50 feet of it.1 The newest source found is from 2023, so its current condition is unconfirmed.1 Anyone curious should ask Picatinny before going.

  1. Green Pond Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/nj/green-pond-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Eric Kowal, "Historic fire lookout tower lights up for first time in nearly 30 years," U.S. Army (army.mil), September 29, 2020, https://www.army.mil/article/239477/historic_fire_lookout_tower_lights_up_for_first_time_in_nearly_30_years (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. 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 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Green Pond Mountain Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Green Pond Mountain Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, what it is built of, status, register numbers, agency, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Wikipedia: List of New Jersey Forest Fire Service fire towers Gave us: ownership, links Wikipedia (NJFFS fire tower list) · CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikipedia). Facts only (register numbers, elevation, height, division, coordinates); article prose/notes not reproduced. Photos are Wikimedia Commons files, each with its own licence on its file page. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  3. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, staffing, 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.