FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Morris County, New Jersey

Milton Station Fire Tower

CCC-built 1937 80-ft lookout on Morris County park land near Jefferson, NJ; a 2016 visit recorded it as unstaffed, with a lock and chain on a floor below the cabin.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. No official current access statement found. A 2016 register visit report describes a steel square with a lock and chain on a floor below the cabin, meant to block future intruders. A 2026 guide says the park is open sunrise to sunset, that visitors willing to climb are rewarded with views from the top, and that the observer may invite visitors up into the cab when the tower is staffed. No official source confirms that visitors may climb it.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Trailhead parking at the Snow Bowl Area on Weldon Road, Jefferson; 2026 guide says the park is open daily, sunrise to sunset
Staffing
Not staffed (as of 2016-04-15)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower80-ft International Derrick steel tower with 7'x7' metal cabThe design: IDECO
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1937
Height
79 ft (24.0 m)
Elevation
1,341 ft (409 m)
Agency
New Jersey Forest Fire Service
Land
State land
Location
Morris County, New Jersey
Coordinates
41.00867, −74.54055
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-nj-milton

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 3.5 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. 1937 BuiltBuilt by the CCC under the Woodlands Protective Expansion ProjectSources: nhlr.org, scenesfromthetrail.com
  2. No record between 1937 and 2004
  3. 2004 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered March 3, 2004 as US 563, NJ 16Source: nhlr.org
  4. No record between 2004 and 2020
  5. 2020 StaffedMilton tower, out of service since Sandy cut its power and phone in 2012, was returned to service and staffed again in 2020.Source: firelookout.org
  6. 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 Milton Station Fire Tower stands on Morris County park land near Jefferson, within Mahlon Dickerson Reservation.1,2,3 A 2026 hiking guide places it atop Bowling Green Mountain.3 The Civilian Conservation Corps built it in 1937 under the Woodlands Protective Expansion Project.1 Its steel frame is an 80-foot International Derrick tower with a 7-by-7-foot metal cab.1,2,3 The register calls it a key facility and notes that every other Division A tower can be seen from it.1

A 2016 visit report posted on the register page asked whether the tower was staffed and recorded the answer as no.1 None of the pages I read names a particular fire the tower reported.1,3

The register says the tower was rehabbed and given a new stainless steel roof, but it gives no date for the work.1 The same 2016 report describes a steel square with a lock and chain on a floor below the cabin, which it says was meant to block future intruders.1 The 2026 guide says the tower still plays an active role today, but no source I read says whether it is staffed today.3

The guide says the park is open daily from sunrise to sunset, with trailhead parking at the Snow Bowl Area on Weldon Road.3 It also says visitors willing to climb are rewarded with views from the top, and that the observer may invite them up into the cab when the tower is staffed.3 No official source I could reach confirms that visitors may climb it, and the 2016 lock and chain suggests the cab may be closed off.1,3 Do not climb it unless the county confirms it is open. Check with Morris County park staff first.

  1. Milton Station Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/nj/milton-station-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. 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). ↩
  3. Milton Station Fire Tower - Mahlon Dickerson Reservation, Scenes from the Trail, https://scenesfromthetrail.com/2026/03/23/milton-station-fire-tower-mahlon-dickerson-reservation/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

April 2016
April 2016 (2016)Photo: Jan Braidech, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Milton Station Fire Tower
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
July 2022 photo
July 2022 photo (2022)Photo: Tom, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.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. 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. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  6. 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.