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Fire lookout · Chenango County, New York

Chenango Lake

CCC-built 79-ft-6-in tower near Norwich, staffed 1936-1946; dismantled and moved near Brookfield in 1948; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Dismantled and moved to a site near Brookfield in 1948; no source describes the Chenango Lake site today.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

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

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower79-foot-6-inch International Derrick tower, provided to New York State by the US Forest ServiceThe design: IDECO
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
79 ft (24.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
New York Conservation Department
Land
Unknown
Location
Chenango County, New York
Coordinates
42.54757, −75.45237
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-chenango-lake

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 3.7 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. 1935 BuiltCCC erected the tower; footings completed in 1934 and the tower in 1935Source: nysffla.org
  2. 1936 First staffedFirst operated in 1936, reporting 2 fires and 49 visitorsSource: nysffla.org
  3. 1946 EventJuly 18, 1946 newspaper report: the tower would move to Brookfield once a foundation was readySource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1946 Last staffedStaffed 1936 through 1943 and again in 1946, the last year listedSource: nysffla.org
  5. 1948 MovedDismantled and moved to a site near Brookfield, Madison CountySources: nysffla.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1948 and 1971
  7. 1971 ClosedBrookfield tower closed at the end of the 1971 seasonSource: nysffla.org
  8. 1983 RemovedBrookfield tower sold and removedSource: nysffla.org
  9. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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.

Chenango Lake's fire tower stood about four miles east of Norwich, on the south side of State Route 23.1 The Civilian Conservation Corps erected it, using a 79-foot-6-inch International Derrick tower that the U.S. Forest Service had supplied to New York State.1 The footings went in during 1934 and the tower was finished in 1935.1 Its first season, in 1936, logged two fires and 49 visitors.1

Observers staffed the tower from 1936 through 1943, and again in 1946.1 That July, the district forester told a newspaper that the tower would move to the town of Brookfield in Madison County once a foundation was ready there.2 The 1946 report only planned the move.2 The Searchable list dates it to 1948, when the tower was dismantled and moved to a site near Brookfield.1,2

At Brookfield the tower stood five miles southwest of the hamlet.1 It was closed at the end of the 1971 season, once aerial detection had taken over the job, and it was sold and removed in 1983.1

The New York lookout directory lists the Chenango Lake tower as gone.3 No source describes what, if anything, remains at either site today, so there are no visiting details to pass on.

  1. Searchable list of NY Fire Towers, New York State Chapter, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://nysffla.org/alphalist.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Chenango Lake - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/chenango-lake.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. New York Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (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: 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, status, agency, staffing, 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.