Fire lookout · Cattaraugus County, New York
Pine Creek (Venison Hill)
Cattaraugus County, NY: 54-ft Aermotor tower built about 1940 by the CCC Indian Division on the Allegany Indian Reservation; still stands, open only with the Nation's permission.
- Standing
- Permission required
- Verified
Permission required
You need permission from the tribe or landowner before visiting. Not accessible to the public without permission from the Nation (NYSFFLA)
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Permission required. 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 tower54-foot Aermotor tower, the only one of its manufacture and design in New York (NYSFFLA)The design: Aermotor
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1940
- Height
- 54 ft (16.5 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps Indian Division through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the New York Indian Agency
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Cattaraugus County, New York
- Coordinates
- 42.08896, −78.86361
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ny-pine-creek-venison-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 3.5 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
- 1940 BuiltErected about 1940 by the CCC Indian Division on the Allegany Indian ReservationSource: nysffla.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.
The tower called Pine Creek, and Venison Hill on the Forest Fire Lookout Association's list, stands in Cattaraugus County on the Allegany Indian Reservation.1,2 The state chapter places it about three miles southwest of the city of Salamanca.1
The Civilian Conservation Corps built it around 1940.1 This was the Corps' Indian Division, working through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the New York Indian Agency.1 Its camps were kept separate from the usual CCC camps, and they did conservation work on reservations.1 The state chapter thinks it was the only camp of this kind in New York.1
The tower is a 54-foot Aermotor.1 The state chapter says it is the sole New York tower of its make and design, and that the stenciling on its steel brace shows the place it was originally shipped to.1 We did not find a staffing history for it, nor any record of the fires it watched.1
Today the tower still stands.1 The state chapter says it is not open to the public without permission from the Nation.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists it as standing.2 The state chapter gives three miles, but by our own rough calculation the coordinates in our listing put the tower about nine miles from Salamanca's listed coordinates, and we have not settled which is right.1,2,3
If you want to see it, ask the Nation first. Please do not climb a tower on land you are not allowed to enter.
- Pine Creek Fire Tower, Searchable list of NY Fire Towers, New York State Chapter, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://nysffla.org/alphalist.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- New York Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Salamanca, New York, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamanca,_New_York (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, status, agency, 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
- Pine Creek Fire Tower (entry in the Searchable list of NY Fire Towers) (New York State Chapter, Forest Fire Lookout Association (nysffla.org)) (opens another site)
- Salamanca, New York (Wikipedia) (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.