FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Hamilton County, New York

Kempshall Mountain

Kempshall Mountain lookout, Hamilton County NY: wooden tower 1911, 35-ft steel tower 1918, closed 1971, removed 1977 or 1980s; parts now an exhibit tower.

The lookout that stood here was moved. Now at the Adirondack History Museum

Moved: The structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from. The mountain tower was dismantled; parts went into an exhibit tower at the Adirondack History Museum in Elizabethtown.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Open to the public. The exhibit tower is climbed from inside the Adirondack History Museum; visitors must enter the museum to climb it.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
The old state trail from Long Lake to the summit was left largely unmaintained after the tower came down; some old state trail markers remain along parts of it.
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Moved
Type
Cab on a tower35-foot Aermotor LS40 steel tower, erected 1918, replacing a wooden tower from 1911The design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1911
Height
36 ft (11.0 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Conservation Commission
Land
Unknown
Location
Hamilton County, New York
Coordinates
44.02448, −74.32980
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-kempshall-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.

The structure was moved. This view is from the position Firefinder shows for this record, at its recorded height.

Downloads about 3.7 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. 1911 BuiltWooden tower built by the Conservation Commission; the first structure on the summit.Source: en.wikipedia.org
  2. 1917 EventA new observer cabin was placed on Kempshall Mountain as part of a set of seven.Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1918 BuiltA 35-foot Aermotor LS40 steel tower was bought and erected, replacing the wooden tower.Sources: en.wikipedia.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1925 EventNew cabins were built at Kempshall, per the 1925 Conservation Commission report.Source: nysffla.org
  5. 1939 EventThe Civilian Conservation Corps built a new cabin for the observer's living quarters.Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1939 and 1971
  7. 1971 ClosedFire lookout operations ended at the end of the 1971 season after aerial detection took over.Sources: en.wikipedia.org, adirondackexplorer.org
  8. 1977 RemovedThe steel tower was dismantled in June 1977, per the Adirondack Explorer. The NHLR says the 1980s.Sources: adirondackexplorer.org, nhlr.org
  9. 1990 MovedThe museum bought the tower parts and built one exhibit tower. NHLR says the 1990s; the exact year is not given.Sources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org
  10. No record between 1990 and 2022
  11. 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRecorded by the National Historic Lookout Register on May 22, 2022, as US 1596, NY 48.Source: nhlr.org
  12. Date unknown MovedThe lookout was moved to the Adirondack History Museum.Source: FFLA
  13. TodayMovedThe structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from.

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.

Kempshall Mountain rises 3,350 feet near the hamlet of Long Lake in Hamilton County, New York, and it once carried a fire lookout.1,2 The first structure on the summit was a wooden tower the Conservation Commission built in May 1911.1 In 1918 a 35-foot Aermotor LS40 steel tower replaced it, bought and erected that year.1,3

Observers had cabins on the mountain too.3 One went up in 1917 as part of a set of new observer cabins.3 New cabins followed in 1925, according to that year's Conservation Commission report.4 In 1939 the Civilian Conservation Corps built a new cabin for the observer's living quarters.3

The tower stopped lookout work at the end of the 1971 season, when aerial detection took over the job.1 The Adirondack Explorer says the steel tower was closed in 1971 and dismantled in June 1977.2 The National Historic Lookout Register says the Kempshall and West Mountain towers were removed in the 1980s.5 The sources disagree on the date of removal.2,5

Parts of the two towers were later used to build one exhibit tower in Elizabethtown.1 Wikipedia calls the host the Essex County Historical Museum, while the register names the Adirondack History Museum.1,5 The register says the museum bought the tower parts in the 1990s and built a single exhibit tower, and it recorded that tower on May 22, 2022, as US 1596, NY 48.5

The mountain tower is listed as gone.6 An Explorer caption describes a small clearing on the summit where the fire tower once stood.2 The trail from Long Lake was left largely unmaintained after the tower came down, though some old state trail markers still show along parts of it.2

Visitors who want to climb the exhibit tower must go through the museum.5

  1. Kempshall Mountain, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kempshall_Mountain (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Historical profile: The person behind Kempshall Mountain, Adirondack Explorer, https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/communities/history/kempshall-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Kempshall Mountain - Forest Lookouts, easternuslookouts.weebly.com, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/kempshall-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. NYSFFLA newsletter, 2025 Jan final, nysffla.org, https://www.nysffla.org/News2025/2025%20Jan%20final.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Adirondack History Museum Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ny/adirondack-history-museum-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  6. New York lookouts index, firelookout.org, 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. 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.