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Fire lookout · Broome County, New York

Ingraham Hill

Broome County, NY tower on Ingraham Hill beside WNBF transmitters; opened 1950 (press still building mid-1951); sold early 1970s; taken down Oct 2016; site posted private.

Private land

No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. Posted private land and closed to the public, per the 2011 Starr list. The 1950 press names WNBF-TV and Clark Associates, Inc. as owners.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Taken down in October 2016 per the FFLA New York annual report for 2016; the 2011 Starr list still had it standing

Visit & stay

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

Access

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

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
No tower remains to climb; the 2011 list says the site is posted private land

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor LS-40 steel tower, 80 ft (Starr list); 1950 press: 91 ft overall, cab 80 ft to platform; plans called for a glass-enclosed cab and three-room observer cabinThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1950
Height
80 ft (24.4 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
New York State Conservation Department (the Starr list files it under NYS-DEC)
Land
Unknown
Location
Broome County, New York
Coordinates
42.06191, −75.95071
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-ingraham-hill

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 3.6 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. 1950 BuiltStarr list: opened and tower year 1950, Aermotor LS-40, 80 ft. Press: lease approved Nov 1950, work set to start Nov 1950, still being completed July 1951.Sources: easternuslookouts.weebly.com, nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1950 and 2016
  3. 2016 DestroyedAn 80-foot tower in Broome County came down (collapsed or was brought down; cause not stated), reported by a member in Nov 2016.Source: nysffla.org
  4. 2016 RemovedTaken down in October 2016 (annual report); the November 2016 newsletter says it came down.Sources: firelookout.org, nysffla.org
  5. 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.

The Ingraham Hill fire tower stood on the same hill as the radio and television transmitters of WNBF, south of Binghamton in Broome County, New York.1 In June 1950 the state put its plan on hold while officials checked whether a tower would interfere with those transmitters.1 In November 1950 the state approved a lease, and work was set to begin near the WNBF transmitter.1

Bill Starr's list of New York DEC towers gives 1950 as the year the tower opened and was built, and lists it as an Aermotor LS-40, 80 feet tall.2 The 1950 press describes it differently. It gives a height of 91 feet overall, with the cab 80 feet up to the platform.1 The plans also called for a glass-enclosed cab and a three-room cabin at the foot for the observer.1 A July 1951 report still called the tower a work in progress, due for completion by July 15, so the exact start date is unclear.1,2

The tower was meant to do two jobs. It would be a spotter post for the civil defense programs of Broome County and Binghamton, and a fire lookout for the state.1 The plan called for the state to man it seven days a week from April 1 to November 30.1

Starr's list says a company bought the tower in the early 1970s, took the walls off the cab, and fitted two-way radio antennas to its floor.2 In 2011 it still stood, but only as a skeleton of what it had been.2 In October 2016 the tower was taken down, and the chapter's annual report for that year calls it the one loss of the year.3 A November 2016 newsletter had reported that the 80-foot tower came down, and thanked Tom Vrooman for telling the chapter.4 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's New York list marks the tower as gone.5

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today. The 2011 list describes the site as posted private land and closed to the public.2 The 1950 press also named two different owners for the site: WNBF-TV, and Clark Associates, Inc.1 Stay off private land, and ask the landowner before going near the hill.

  1. Ingraham hill, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/ingraham-hill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. The Fire Towers Operated by the NYS-DEC, Bill Starr list (March 2011), National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/media/2974/new_york_fire_tower_list_by_bill_starr_3-14-11.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. New York State Annual Report for 2016, Forest Fire Lookout Association New York Chapter, https://firelookout.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/cr-ny-2016.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. November 2016 Newsletter, Forest Fire Lookout Association New York Chapter, https://www.nysffla.org/Newsletters/2016/2016-11.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. 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, 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. Forest Fire Lookout Association, New York State Chapter Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, New York State Chapter (nysffla.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the chapter newsletter it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR and FFLA records (the chapter publishes none). · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  4. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. 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.