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Fire lookout · Cattaraugus County, New York

McCarty Hill

Cattaraugus County 82.5-foot tower built by CCC men in 1940; closed in 1989 and removed in 1993, with a county communications tower built on the site.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Lookout removed in 1993; a county free-standing communications tower was built on the site. No source describes that tower's condition today.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerInternational Derrick model 1937 steel lookout tower, 82 ft 6 inThe design: IDECO
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1940
Height
82 ft (25.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
New York State Conservation Department, built with Civilian Conservation Corps Camp 106 men
Land
Unknown
Location
Cattaraugus County, New York
Coordinates
42.25638, −78.69500
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-mccarty-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 3.7 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. 1940 BuiltGround broken in May 1940 by Hungry Hollow CCC camp workers; steel tower completed as an 82.5-foot lookoutSources: easternuslookouts.weebly.com, nysffla.org, en.wikipedia.org
  2. 1941 First staffedFirst staffed in 1941 (per Wikipedia)Source: en.wikipedia.org
  3. No record between 1941 and 1987
  4. 1987 EventTower began hosting repeater antennas for the Cattaraugus County Sheriff's Office (per Wikipedia)Source: en.wikipedia.org
  5. 1988 Last staffedFire lookout operations ceased at the end of the 1988 seasonSource: en.wikipedia.org
  6. 1989 ClosedNYSDEC officially closed the tower in early 1989Source: en.wikipedia.org
  7. 1993 RemovedTower dismantled and removed as the county built a free-standing communications tower on the siteSource: 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.

McCarty Hill lies in Cattaraugus County, mostly in Little Valley and Great Valley.1 In May 1940 the Olean Times Herald reported work under way on a new tower there.2 Workers from the Hungry Hollow CCC camp had broken ground for its concrete piers.2

Civilian Conservation Corps men from Camp 106, at Camp Seneca, helped build the steel tower.3 The 1940 report planned a tower 82 and a half feet high, with a glassed-in cabin at the top.2 Wikipedia gives the height of the finished tower as 82 feet 6 inches.1 Starr's list gives the design as an International Derrick model 1937.4

The sources disagree on the name. Wikipedia says the tower was first meant for Irish Hill, about six miles northeast.1 Starr's list says McCarty Hill is locally called Irish Hill.4

The 1940 report expected a ranger from the state Conservation Department to be assigned to watch for fires in the surrounding forests.2 Wikipedia dates the first staffing to 1941, when four fires and 980 visitors were logged at the tower.1 Starr's list says it operated three months a year, in April, May and October, and into June and November when fire danger was extreme.4

Wikipedia says lookout work stopped after the 1988 season, and the state formally closed the tower in early 1989.1 From 1987 it carried repeater antennas for the county sheriff's office.1 In 1993 the state agreed that the county sheriff's office could build a free-standing tower on the same site.1 The old lookout came down at the same time the new tower went up.1

Wikipedia says the two ski resorts sit on the north side of the mountain, and most of the rest is state forest.1 No source we read describes the 1993 tower's condition today, or whether the public can reach the summit.

Do not confuse McCarty Hill with the Salamanca Fire Tower. That older tower, erected in the fall of 1938 and 40 feet tall to its floor, is in the Town of Little Valley, and a 2022 newsletter says it still stands.3

  1. McCarty Hill, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarty_Hill (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. New York, Forest Lookouts (Eastern US), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/new-york.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Forest Fire Lookout Association, New York State Chapter newsletter, April 2022, https://www.nysffla.org/News2022/2022%20Apr%20final.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. New York Fire Towers list, Bill Starr, 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). ↩

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 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
  3. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, 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.