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Fire lookout · Essex County, New York

Boreas Mountain

Essex County, NY Adirondack lookout: 1919 steel tower closed after the 1971 season and later removed; cabin gone; public hiking route since a 2012 easement.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. A 2012 easement from Elk Lake gives the public hiking access along the route (Peakery)

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Starts at The Branch parking area on Blue Ridge Road; a logging road along the Branch River leads to the former cabin site, then a trail to the summit (Peakery)

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower47-ft LS40 Aermotor steel fire lookout tower, built 1919 to replace a 1911 wooden towerThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1911
Height
46 ft (14.0 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Conservation Commission (Wikipedia); Forest Lookouts calls it the State Conservation Department
Land
State land
Location
Essex County, New York
Coordinates
44.00312, −73.88068
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-boreas-mountain

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 3.6 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. 1911 BuiltConservation Commission built a wooden tower on the summit for fire lookout purposesSource: en.wikipedia.org
  2. 1919 Replaced by a new structureConservation Commission replaced the wooden tower with a 47-ft steel LS40 Aermotor tower; a 1943 survey description gives about 60 ftSources: en.wikipedia.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1919 StaffedJoseph Hanmer of Blue Ridge named as the observer stationed on the mountain (September 1919 newspaper)Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1919 and 1939
  5. 1939 StaffedJanuary 1939 newspaper item names Ernest Hamner as the observer; the start date is not givenSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1939 and 1971
  7. 1971 ClosedClosed at the end of the 1971 fire lookout season because aerial detection had grown; later removedSource: en.wikipedia.org
  8. No record between 1971 and 2012
  9. 2012 EventElk Lake granted the public an easement for hiking to Boreas Mountain along the existing roads and trailSource: peakery.com
  10. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Boreas Mountain is a 3,780-foot peak in the Adirondacks, west-northwest of North Hudson in Essex County.1 In May 1911 the Conservation Commission put up a wooden fire lookout on the summit.1 In 1919 it replaced that with a 47-foot steel tower.1

A Coast and Geodetic Survey station description from 1943 puts the steel tower at about 60 feet, with a glass-enclosed cab on top.2 The two sources disagree on its height.1,2

In September 1919, while the steel tower was being hauled up the mountain in sections, a newspaper reported that Joseph Hanmer of Blue Ridge was the observer stationed there.2 A January 1939 newspaper item names Ernest Hamner, a fire tower observer, who spotted fires from the tower in the fall and then spent the winter hunting and trapping.2 One of his traps held a 48-pound panther.2

Aerial detection had grown by then, so the tower was shut at the end of the 1971 fire lookout season and taken down later.1 Jeff Mans, a chapter member of the Adirondack Mountain Club, told North Country Public Radio that the state removed the tower in the 1970s.3 The observer's cabin is also gone, according to a trail write-up.4

Peakery's route description says hikers can still walk to the summit.4 Peakery also notes that Elk Lake gave the public an easement for hiking to Boreas Mountain in 2012.4 The route starts at The Branch parking area on Blue Ridge Road, follows a logging road along the Branch River to the former cabin site, and then continues on a trail to the summit.4,3 No source we read says whether any footings or other remains of the tower survive.1,2,4

  1. Boreas Mountain (New York), Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreas_Mountain_(New_York) (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Boreas Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/boreas-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Amateur sleuthing led to this weekend's Adirondack Mountain Club hike, North Country Public Radio, https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/45647/20220330/amateur-sleuthing-led-to-this-weekend-s-adirondack-mountain-club-hike (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Boreas Mountain - New York, Peakery, https://peakery.com/boreas-mountain-new-york/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: agency, ownership, 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, 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.