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Fire lookout · Rockland County, New York

Diamond Mountain

Two fire towers on Diamond Mountain near Sloatsburg: a 1935 steel tower and a 1966 Aermotor replacement, removed 1986; no source describes the summit site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Both towers removed: the first taken down in 1955, the second removed in 1986.

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 2020 hiking account describes trails in Harriman State Park that reach the summit. The account does not describe the tower site itself.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
A yellow-blazed Diamond Mountain Tower Trail and the HTS Trail reach the summit. No source describes any remaining tower structure.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerSteel tower built in 1935 from the steel of the old Bear Mountain tower; 1966 replacement was an 80-foot Aermotor LS 40 with louvered aluminum windows in the cabThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
80 ft (24.4 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Palisades State Park Commission
Land
Unknown
Location
Rockland County, New York
Coordinates
41.18082, −74.13626
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-diamond-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 4.1 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 BuiltPalisades State Park Commission built a steel tower from the steel of the old Bear Mountain towerSource: nysffla.org
  2. No record between 1935 and 1955
  3. 1955 RemovedFirst tower taken down; its steel stored for safe keepingSource: nysffla.org
  4. 1966 Replaced by a new structurePark Commission erected an 80-foot Aermotor LS 40 towerSource: nysffla.org
  5. No record between 1966 and 1986
  6. 1986 RemovedSecond tower removed after standing twenty yearsSource: nysffla.org
  7. 1989 ClosedDEC deactivated most fire observation stations; the detection system that included Diamond Mountain came to a haltSource: nysffla.org
  8. 1998 EventSteel from the Diamond Mountain towers reused at Sterling Fire Tower when Sterling Forest State Park was createdSource: 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.

Diamond Mountain lies about three miles northeast of Sloatsburg in Rockland County, and it carried two fire towers, one after the other.1,2

The first was a steel tower built in 1935 by the Palisades State Park Commission, using steel from the old Bear Mountain tower.1 It came down in 1955, and its steel went into storage.1 In 1966 the Park Commission bought and erected an 80-foot Aermotor LS 40 tower with louvered aluminum windows in its observation cab. That tower stood for twenty years before it was removed in 1986.1

The park stopped running its fire towers in the early 1980s, citing manpower shortages and budget restrictions.1 In 1989 the state Department of Environmental Conservation deactivated most of its fire observation stations, and the detection system that included the Diamond Mountain towers came to a halt.1 The list says no photos of either tower have been located. Some of the steel was later reused at the Sterling Fire Tower when Sterling Forest State Park was created in 1998.1

Today the summit is reached by hiking trails in Harriman State Park.3 A 2020 hiking account describes a yellow-blazed Diamond Mountain Tower Trail and a climb to the top on the HTS Trail.3 That account does not say whether any footings, steel, or other part of the tower remains on the summit, and no source describes the tower site now.3

  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. New York Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Harriman Hiker, "Harriman State Park and Beyond: Lake Sebago and Diamond Mountain Loop", https://www.harrimanhiker.com/2020/06/lake-sebago-and-diamond-mountain-loop.html (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, 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.