Fire lookout · Franklin County, New York
Meenagha Mountain
Franklin County, NY tower built in 1927 for the Adirondack-Florida School; still standing on private land and closed to the public, per Wikipedia.
- Standing
- Private land
- Verified
Private land
No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. On private land and closed to the public, per Wikipedia; no recent visit report found
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Private land. See the warning at the top of this page.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower73-foot Aermotor LS40 fire lookout towerThe design: Aermotor LS-40
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1927
- Height
- 72 ft (22.0 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Unknown
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Franklin County, New York
- Coordinates
- 44.49531, −74.15417
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ny-meenagha-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.
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
- 1927 BuiltBuilt by Conservation Department Forest Ranger Albert Tebeau for the Adirondack-Florida SchoolSource: en.wikipedia.org
- TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.
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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Meenagha Mountain rises in the Adirondacks, northeast of the hamlet of Paul Smiths in Franklin County.1 Wikipedia spells it Meenahga, but the Forest Fire Lookout Association index and the Adirondack Architectural Heritage list both use Meenagha, so we keep that spelling.1,2,3
In 1927, Conservation Department forest ranger Albert Tebeau erected a 73-foot Aermotor LS40 lookout for the Adirondack-Florida School.1 The school used it most. When fire danger ran high, the tower also served as a fire observation station, under an arrangement with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.1
We found no record of any particular fire the tower watched.
Wikipedia says the tower still stands on private land, with no public access.1 The Adirondack Architectural Heritage list also files it under private land, a group where some allow public access by easement.3 We found nothing showing that this tower does.
CNY Hiking lists Meenagha among the five New York fire towers it describes as privately owned.4
A visitor's 2019 post on the Adirondack Forum says a house has been put up on the summit.5 We could not confirm that from any other source, so treat it as unverified.
The Forest Fire Lookout Association index still lists the tower as standing.2 Because it is private and closed, do not try to climb it or reach it without the landowner's permission.
- Meenahga Mountain, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meenahga_Mountain (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- New York Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Regional List, Adirondack Architectural Heritage, https://aarch.org/preserve/fire-towers/regional-list/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Fire Towers in New York State, CNY Hiking, https://www.cnyhiking.com/NYStateFireTowers.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Meenahga Mountain, Adirondack Forum, https://www.adkforum.com/forum/the-adirondack-forum/hiking-in-the-adirondacks/adirondack-firetowers/25149-meenahga-mountain (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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
- Meenahga Mountain (Wikipedia) (opens another site)
- Regional List (Adirondack Architectural Heritage) (opens another site)
- Fire Towers in New York State (CNY Hiking) (opens another site)
- Meenahga Mountain (forum thread) (Adirondack Forum) (opens another site)
- FFLA New York lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.