FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Orange County, New York

Fingerboard Mountain

60-ft Aermotor LS40 built 1928 in Harriman State Park; closed in the 1970s and taken apart by the mid-1980s; the Appalachian Trail passes the mountain.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Closed in the 1970s and taken apart by the mid-1980s; the parts went to New Jersey

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. Harriman State Park land; the Appalachian Trail passes the mountain, and WillhiteWeb gives a side road of 0.2 mile from the trail

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
No tower stands. AT access: 0.2 mile side road with 100 foot gain (WillhiteWeb).

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower60-foot Aermotor LS40 steel tower built 1928; a wooden pole tower stood at the site from 1915The design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1915
Height
60 ft (18.3 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Palisades State Park Commission
Land
State land
Location
Orange County, New York
Coordinates
41.27717, −74.09144
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-fingerboard-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 3.9 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. 1915 BuiltWooden pole tower erected at the site as part of park fire detection, with a telephone line to the nearest patrol officeSource: willhiteweb.com
  2. 1927 EventDecember 1927 newspaper item, quoted by the Eastern site: one of three 60-foot steel towers was being built on the northeast summitSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1928 Built60-foot Aermotor LS40 built by the Palisades State Park Commission; one of three such towers that yearSources: en.wikipedia.org, willhiteweb.com
  4. No record between 1928 and 1970
  5. 1970 ClosedEarly 1970s per Wikipedia (closed and removed); WillhiteWeb says closed through the 1970s into the early 1980s and vandalizedSources: en.wikipedia.org, willhiteweb.com
  6. No record between 1970 and 1985
  7. 1985 RemovedMid-1980s per WillhiteWeb: taken apart, parts sent to the New Jersey Department of Forestry; Wikipedia dates removal to the early 1970sSources: willhiteweb.com, en.wikipedia.org
  8. 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.

Fingerboard Mountain sits in Orange County, inside Harriman State Park, north of Lake Tiorati.1,2 In 1915 the park brought in a professional forester, and a wooden pole tower with a telephone line to the nearest patrol office was erected at the site.3

A December 1927 newspaper item, quoted by the Eastern lookouts site, reported that one of three 60-foot steel towers was being built on the northeast summit.2 Wikipedia and WillhiteWeb both date the 60-foot tower to 1928.1,3 Each describes a 60-foot Aermotor LS40 put up by the Palisades State Park Commission, one of three such towers that year.1,3

In the late 1960s, Ranger Tim Sullivan reported that the tower was manned regularly in the dry fall hunting season, so that fires left by careless hunters could be put out quickly.3

Accounts differ on when the tower came down. Wikipedia says it stopped lookout work in the early 1970s and was then closed and removed.1 WillhiteWeb says it was closed through the 1970s and into the early 1980s and suffered vandalism.3 By the mid-1980s, it says, the tower had been taken apart, and its parts went to New Jersey's Department of Forestry to repair other Aermotor towers.3 The Eastern site lists the tower only as removed.2

The tower is gone, and the FFLA's New York list marks it as "Tower Gone."4 The mountain is state park land, and the Appalachian Trail passes it.2,3 WillhiteWeb describes a side road of about 0.2 mile from the trail, with a climb of about 100 feet.3 Its photos of the site include a caption reading "Glass and other stuff," but the text does not describe any footings or other remains, so we cannot say what is left today.3

  1. Fingerboard Mountain, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerboard_Mountain (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Fingerboard Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/fingerboard-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Fingerboard Mountain Lookout, WillhiteWeb.com, https://willhiteweb.com/appalachian_trail/fire_lookouts/fingerboard_mountain/tower_049.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. 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: height, 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, status, 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.