Fire lookout · Madison County, New York
Georgetown Mountain
Madison County, NY 67-foot-6 International Derrick tower built by CCC Camp S-103 in 1940 on Morrow Mountain; closed in 1970 and later removed.
- Gone
- Open to the public
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Closed at the end of the 1970 season and later removed. A New Hartford resident recently bought the dismantled parts and hopes to re-erect the tower at a camp in Oppenheim, NY; the list says only 'recently'. No source describes the summit today.
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. Morrow Mountain State Forest is open year-round at no charge. The tower is gone, and no source says what remains on the summit.
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower67-foot-6 International Derrick towerThe design: IDECO
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1940
- Height
- 68 ft (20.6 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Unknown
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Madison County, New York
- Coordinates
- 42.81259, −75.75093
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ny-georgetown-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 3.8 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
- 1940 BuiltErected by the CCC Camp S-103, DeRuyter, on Morrow Mountain.Source: nysffla.org
- No record between 1940 and 1970
- 1970 ClosedClosed at the end of the 1970 season because aerial detection had taken over; later removed.Source: nysffla.org
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list calls this site Georgetown Mountain and marks its tower as gone.1 The New York chapter places the tower on Morrow Mountain, about three and a half miles north of the village of Georgetown, in Madison County.2 The state's forest page gives the mountain's height as 2,142 feet and calls it the county's high point.3
The Civilian Conservation Corps built the tower in 1940 through its Camp S-103 at DeRuyter.2 It was a 67-foot, six-inch International Derrick tower.2 Once aerial detection arrived, the tower was closed at the end of the 1970 season.2
The tower was later removed.2 According to the same chapter list, a New Hartford resident recently bought the dismantled parts and hopes to re-erect the tower at his camp in Oppenheim, New York.2
Morrow Mountain is now part of Morrow Mountain State Forest, which covers 1,290 acres and is open year-round at no charge.3 The forest is primitive, with few amenities, and hiking is allowed anywhere on the property unless it is posted otherwise.3 The state's directions name Fire Tower among the roads that reach the forest.3 No source we read describes what, if anything, remains of the tower on the summit today.
- New York Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Searchable list of NY Fire Towers, New York State Chapter of the Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://nysffla.org/alphalist.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Morrow Mountain State Forest, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, https://dec.ny.gov/places/morrow-mountain-state-forest (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, access, 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
- Searchable list of NY Fire Towers (New York State Chapter of the Forest Fire Lookout Association) (opens another site)
- Morrow Mountain State Forest (New York State Department of Environmental Conservation) (opens another site)
- FFLA New York lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Georgetown Mountain (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.