Fire lookout · Cattaraugus County, New York
Mount Tuscarora
Cattaraugus County, NY tower in Allegany State Park, built in 1928; still standing, but sources call for restoration and no recent condition report was found.
- Standing
- Access unknown
- Verified
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Access unknown
We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower60-foot Aermotor LS40 steel fire lookout towerThe design: Aermotor LS-40
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1928
- Height
- 59 ft (18.0 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Allegany State Park (NY State Parks)
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Cattaraugus County, New York
- Coordinates
- 42.02161, −78.86078
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ny-mount-tuscarora
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 3.6 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
- 1928 BuiltBuilt by the Conservation Department's Division of State ParksSources: en.wikipedia.org, hmdb.org
- 1931 EventJurisdiction moved to Forest Fire Control for many park towers; Allegany State Park kept this one and staffed it in high fire dangerSource: 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.
Mount Tuscarora stands in Allegany State Park, in Coldspring, Cattaraugus County, near Quaker Lake.1,2
The state built the tower in 1928. Wikipedia credits the Conservation Department's Division of State Parks with putting up a 60-foot Aermotor LS40 steel tower that year.1 A historical marker in the park repeats that a tower went up on Mount Tuscarora in 1928, along with another at Rice Brook.3
In 1931, jurisdiction over many park towers moved to Forest Fire Control. Allegany State Park kept the Mount Tuscarora tower, however, and staffed it whenever fire danger was high.1
We found no record of a particular fire seen from the tower.
Wikipedia says the tower is still standing but needs someone to adopt and restore it.1 The Allegany State Park article says that when fire lookouts were dropped in 1971 for air surveillance, park staff took down only one tower, the Mount Irvine tower, during the early 1970s. It names no other tower taken down, Mount Tuscarora's included.2
The Forest Fire Lookout Association index lists the tower as standing.4 We found no recent condition report and no clear current statement on whether visitors may climb it. Do not climb it without checking with the park first.
- Mount Tuscarora, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tuscarora (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Allegany State Park, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegany_State_Park (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Fire Tower is Reborn, Historical Marker Database, https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=89109 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- New York Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (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, 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
- Mount Tuscarora (Wikipedia) (opens another site)
- Allegany State Park (Wikipedia) (opens another site)
- Fire Tower is Reborn (historical marker) (Historical Marker Database) (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.