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Fire lookout · Dutchess County, New York

Clove Mountain

Dutchess County NY: 60-ft state fire tower built 1933, in service until 1988, decommissioned 1989; still standing on private land and closed to the public.

Private land

No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. On private property and closed to the public, per the Forest Fire Lookout Association list and Wikipedia. The list's note is undated.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Private land. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower60-foot Aermotor LS-40 steel tower with observer's cabinThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
60 ft (18.3 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
New York State Conservation Department (now the Department of Environmental Conservation)
Land
Unknown
Location
Dutchess County, New York
Coordinates
41.68839, −73.69297
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-clove-mountain

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. 1933 BuiltErected by the NY State Conservation Department as a steel tower with an observer's cabin completed shortly afterSources: en.wikipedia.org, nysffla.org
  2. 1933 First staffedThe first five observers were hired, collectively serving from April 1933Source: en.wikipedia.org
  3. No record between 1933 and 1953
  4. 1953 StaffedA 1953 notice names Oscar Ferris as fire observer on Clove MountainSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1960 StaffedCollective service of the first five observers ended in May 1960; later staffing is not described in the sources readSource: en.wikipedia.org
  6. No record between 1960 and 1989
  7. 1989 ClosedOfficially decommissioned as a fire lookout the year after service ended with the 1988 fire seasonSource: en.wikipedia.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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Clove Mountain fire tower stands on Clove Mountain in Dutchess County, New York, about seven miles south of the village of Millbrook.1,2 The New York State Conservation Department erected a steel fire lookout tower on the summit in 1933, with an observer's cabin finished soon after.3

Two sources agree on the basics. The tower is 60 feet tall and is an Aermotor LS-40 model.3,1 It sits about three and a half miles east of James Baird State Park, on the Taconic State Parkway.1

Planning came first. In 1930, early wildfire detection in Dutchess County was judged inadequate, and a tower for Clove Mountain was formally proposed along with one for Mount Beacon.3

The first five observers at Clove served together from April 1933 until May 1960, and each was hired at a starting salary of $100 a month.3 A 1953 notice quoted by the Forest Lookouts site names Oscar Ferris as the fire observer on Clove Mountain that year.4 We found no record of a particular fire the tower spotted.

The tower stayed in service through the 1988 fire season and was officially decommissioned the following year.3 Both the tower and its cabin still stand, but they are not actively maintained and sit on private property.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list marks the tower as standing but closed to visitors, and that entry carries no date.1,2

Please do not try to climb or reach the tower. It is on private land, and the list says it is closed to the public.3,1

  1. Searchable list of NY Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://nysffla.org/alphalist.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. New York Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Clove Mountain, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clove_Mountain (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Clove Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/clove-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, agency, access, 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.