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Fire lookout · Clinton County, New York

Palmer Hill

Clinton County, NY: 60-ft Aermotor LS40 lookout built 1930 to back up Whiteface; active 1979-1988, closed 1989; still stands on private land, not open to the public.

Private land

No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. On private property and not open to the public (Wikipedia; NYSFFLA)

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
Not staffed (as of 1989)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower60-foot Aermotor LS40 steel tower with an observer's cabinThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
60 ft (18.3 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
New York Conservation Department
Land
Unknown
Location
Clinton County, New York
Coordinates
44.46580, −73.67438
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-palmer-hill

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 3.3 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. 1930 BuiltBuilt by the Conservation Department on the summit, with an observer's cabin, to supplement the Whiteface Mountain towerSources: en.wikipedia.org, nysffla.org
  2. 1930 First staffedOperated for part of the 1930 season and reported nine firesSource: nysffla.org
  3. No record between 1930 and 1971
  4. 1971 ClosedClosed in early 1971 with the advent of aerial detection and placed on the inactive listSource: nysffla.org
  5. 1979 StaffedReactivated in 1979Sources: en.wikipedia.org, nysffla.org
  6. 1988 Last staffedActive until closing at the end of the 1988 seasonSources: en.wikipedia.org, nysffla.org
  7. 1989 ClosedOfficially closed in early 1989 after DEC determined that towers were no longer effective and decided to phase them outSource: nysffla.org
  8. 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 (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Palmer Hill rises to about 1,145 feet in the Adirondacks, about two miles north of the hamlet of Au Sable Forks in Clinton County.1,2 In 1930 the state Conservation Department put a 60-foot Aermotor LS40 tower and an observer's cabin on the summit.1,2 The tower was meant to back up the one on Whiteface Mountain.2 Fires in the early spring and late fall were common in that country, and the Whiteface tower could not always be run in those seasons, so fires often grew large before a more distant tower spotted them.2

The Palmer Hill lookout reported nine fires in its first season.2 The tower was closed in early 1971, around the time aerial detection came into use, and was put on the inactive list.2 It was reactivated in 1979 and kept watch until the end of the 1988 season.1,2 In early 1989 the Department of Environmental Conservation judged the towers no longer effective and moved to phase them out.2

The tower is still standing, on private land, and closed to visitors.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists it as standing.3 The CNY Hiking list also gives its land as private.4 We did not find a recent description of its condition, so we cannot say more about what is left of the structure.

Since the land is private, the sensible way to see Palmer Hill is from a distance, and any visit should respect the owner's land.

  1. Palmer Hill, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Hill (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Searchable list of NY Fire Towers, New York State Chapter, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://nysffla.org/alphalist.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. New York Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Fire Towers in New York State, CNY Hiking, https://www.cnyhiking.com/NYStateFireTowers.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

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