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Fire lookout · Cumberland County, New Jersey

Millville Station Fire Tower

Built 1922 as a 60-ft steel lookout on the Bridgeton Pike near Millville, Cumberland County, NJ; later raised to 100 ft; a watchman staffed it until 1942.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Access unknown

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

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerSteel Aermotor tower, 60 ft originally with a 7'x7' metal cab; later raised to 100 ftThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1922
Height
98 ft (30.0 m)
Elevation
83 ft (25 m)
Agency
New Jersey Forest Fire Service
Land
State land
Location
Cumberland County, New Jersey
Coordinates
39.39898, −75.07393
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-nj-millville

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 3.2 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. 1922 BuiltRegister gives 1922; the 1922-23 state annual report says it opened for service April 1Sources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1922 Replaced by a new structureReplaced an earlier structure of local designSource: nhlr.org
  3. 1922 First staffedWatchman Josiah Hankins served from the time the tower was builtSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1922 and 1942
  5. 1942 Last staffedHankins retired a few weeks before an April 20, 1942 newspaper itemSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1942 and 2004
  7. 2004 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered March 15, 2004 as US 569, NJ 22Source: nhlr.org
  8. 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.

Millville Station Fire Tower stands on the Bridgeton Pike near Millville, in Cumberland County, New Jersey.1,2 The state put up a 60-foot steel lookout there in 1922 to replace an older tower of local design.1,2 A newspaper item from that spring said it would guard one of the largest wilderness areas in New Jersey and was expected to aid greatly in cutting the number of fires in territory the paper called one of the most troublesome in the state.2

The sources disagree on where the tower stands and when it opened. The 1922-23 state annual report places it about two miles west of Millville and says it opened for service on April 1.2 A newspaper item dated April 26, 1922 places it two and a half miles east and says it had just been opened.2 The register describes a 60-foot Aermotor tower with a 7-by-7-foot metal cab that was later raised to 100 feet, and the Wikipedia list gives the same 100-foot height without a date for the change.1,3

A watchman, Josiah Hankins, staffed the tower from the time it was built until his health forced him to retire a few weeks before an April 20, 1942 newspaper item.2 None of the pages I read names a particular fire the tower reported.1,2

The register says the tower was renovated under an "extended use" program and is listed as in active service, though the page gives no date for that work.1 It was registered on March 15, 2004.1

The New Jersey Forest Fire Service administers the tower.1 No source I read says whether the public may visit the grounds or climb it today. The 1922 notice that it would be open to the public is historical only.2 Check with the Forest Fire Service before planning a trip.

  1. Millville Station Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/nj/millville-station-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Millville - Forest Lookouts, Eastern US Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/millville.html (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 Millville Station Fire Tower
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: height, 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. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, 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.