FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Cattaraugus County, New York

Salamanca

City of Salamanca steel fire tower erected fall 1938 in Rock City State Forest, Cattaraugus County; derelict and still standing, with the cab apparently gone. Single first-hand account.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. On Rock City State Forest land. The 2022 writer found the tower badly rusted and unsafe to climb.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
The 2022 writer reached the site by mountain bike and on foot from the Hungry Hollow Road, which was open to the summit ridge that day. State Forest roads open on April 1 or when they dry out.
Staffing
Not staffed (as of undated)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Open platform towerSteel tower about 40 ft to its floor; maker unidentified (not Aermotor, International Derrick, Blaw-Knox or International Stacey, per the 2022 writer)The designs: Aermotor, IDECO, Blaw-Knox
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1938
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Unknown
Land
Unknown
Location
Cattaraugus County, New York
Coordinates
42.19956, −78.71266
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-salamanca

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 3.7 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. 1938 BuiltErected by the City of Salamanca in fall 1938 to watch about 1,100 acres of reforested city land around its reservoir; the newspaper account the writer quotes credits the Water & Light DepartmentSource: nysffla.org
  2. 1945 Last staffedThe writer believes it was no longer staffed by the time World War II ended; the writer gives no exact dateSource: nysffla.org
  3. No record between 1945 and 2022
  4. 2022 Condition assessmentVisited and described in the April 2022 FFLA-NY newsletter: cab apparently missing, bottom ladder rung detached, steel badly rustedSource: nysffla.org
  5. 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.

The City of Salamanca put up a steel fire tower in the fall of 1938.1 The 2022 Forest Fire Lookout Association newsletter says the city erected it to watch about 1,100 acres it had bought and reforested around its water reservoir in Newton Run Hollow, just north of the city.1 The earlier newspaper account the article quotes credits the city's Water & Light Department.1 The article places the tower in the Town of Little Valley, and the tower now stands in Rock City State Forest in Cattaraugus County.1,2

The 2022 writer could not name the maker.1 The tower is about 40 feet tall to its floor, and the writer ruled out an Aermotor, an International Derrick, a Blaw-Knox and an International Stacey. The writer found no name plate, and the steel is so rusted that no stencil marks were visible.1

According to the writer, a man from Elkdale staffed the tower before World War II, though the article that named him has been lost.1 During the war, Civilian Air Patrol crews logged aircraft movements from the tower.1 The writer believes it was no longer staffed when the war ended, as the city's forests had matured and the state's McCarty Hill tower came into use.1 The writer could find no other newspaper article about the tower.1

The tower still stands, but its cab, if it ever had one, is missing. The lowest rung of the external ladder has come loose from its base.1 The writer climbed one step and then stopped, out of concern that the tower might collapse.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's New York list shows it as a standing platform tower.3

The tower sits on State Forest land.1 The writer biked into the State Forest from the Hungry Hollow Road, which was open to the summit ridge that day, and then went on foot looking for the tower.1 The roads to the parking area and to Little Rock City open on April 1, or once they dry out enough for a car.1 Anyone visiting should leave the tower alone, since the writer judged it at risk of collapse.1

  1. New York State Chapter newsletter, April 2022, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.nysffla.org/News2022/2022%20Apr%20final.pdf (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Rock City State Forest, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_City_State_Forest (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. New York Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (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. 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, status, access, staffing, visiting details, 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.