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Fire lookout · Atlantic County, New Jersey

Mizpah Station Fire Tower

Built 1924 as a 60-ft steel Aermotor lookout at Mizpah, Atlantic County, NJ; moved one mile and raised to 100 ft in 1959; listed on the NHLR in 2004.

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, originally 60 ft with 7'x7' metal cab; raised to 100 ft in 1959The design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1924
Height
98 ft (30.0 m)
Elevation
106 ft (32 m)
Agency
New Jersey Forest Fire Service
Land
State land
Location
Atlantic County, New Jersey
Coordinates
39.48315, −74.84752
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-nj-mizpah

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. 1924 BuiltBuilt 1924 near the old Mizpah Hotel; newspapers of June 1924 report it nearly erectedSources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1924 and 1959
  3. 1959 AlteredRaised from 60 ft to 100 ft at the time of the move (register only)Source: nhlr.org
  4. 1959 MovedMoved one mile up the road to its present site (register only)Source: nhlr.org
  5. No record between 1959 and 2004
  6. 2004 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered March 15, 2004 as US 570, NJ 23Source: nhlr.org
  7. 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.

Mizpah Station Fire Tower stands in Atlantic County, New Jersey, in the Pinelands region near Hamilton Township.1,2 A March 28, 1924 newspaper notice said a large steel tower would help guards locate fires accurately as soon as they started.3 Fire Warden Maurice F. Aaron arranged for it, and on June 22, 1924 a paper reported it nearly erected.3

According to the register, the first tower stood near the old Mizpah Hotel. It was a 60-foot Aermotor with a 7-by-7-foot metal cab.1 In 1959 it was moved one mile up the road and raised to 100 feet.1 Only the register mentions the 1959 move.1 The Wikipedia list gives the tower a height of 100 feet (30 m) and an elevation of 106 feet (32 m).2

The register says the tower was recently restored and is the key tower of the southern region of the Pinelands, though it gives no date for the restoration.1 It was added to the register on March 15, 2004.1 I found no record of who staffed Mizpah or of any particular fire it reported.1,3

The New Jersey Forest Fire Service administers the tower.1 None of the sources I read says whether the public may visit or climb it, so ask the Forest Fire Service before going.

  1. Mizpah Station Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/nj/mizpah-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. Mizpah - Forest Lookouts, Eastern US Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/mizpah.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Mizpah 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, 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: type, 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.