Fire lookout · Hamilton County, New York
Salmon Lake Mountain
Hamilton County, NY 35-foot Aermotor LX24 tower put up around 1933 by Whitney Park; still stands on private land in poor condition, closed to the public.
- Standing
- Private land
- Verified
Private land
No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. On private land within the Whitney Estate and not open to the public. The estate sale to Todd Interests fell through; the estate was back on the market at $125 million per Adirondack Explorer.
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 tower35-foot Aermotor LX24 towerThe design: Aermotor LX-24 / LX-25
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1933
- Height
- 36 ft (11.0 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Privately owned by Whitney Park; cooperated with the Conservation Commission on fire watching
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Hamilton County, New York
- Coordinates
- 43.96345, −74.64548
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ny-salmon-lake-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 3.7 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
- 1933 BuiltBuilt around 1933 by Whitney Park; the NYSFFLA newsletter note also gives 1933 as the year it was erectedSources: en.wikipedia.org, 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.
Salmon Lake Mountain lies west of the hamlet of Long Lake, in Hamilton County, in the Adirondacks.1 Around 1933 the Whitney Park estate put up a 35-foot Aermotor LX24 tower on the mountain.1,2 Although the tower was privately owned, it helped the Conservation Commission with fire watching.1
The sources we read do not name any observer who worked the tower, or any fire it helped to spot. The Forest Fire Lookout Association's New York list shows the tower as standing.3
Wikipedia says the tower is still standing, though in bad shape and closed to visitors.1 A note in the New York chapter's June 2025 newsletter, written to the best of its author's knowledge, says the tower remains on private property on the Whitney Estate, where a sale is pending.2
The estate's sale has a history of its own. The Adirondack Explorer reported that Todd Interests, a Dallas-based developer, had entered into contracts to buy Whitney Park, according to the company's chairman.4 A later Explorer report said that deal had failed after six months, and that the estate was back on the market at $125 million.5 We found no later owner, so who holds the tower today is not confirmed.
We found no public access to the tower.1,2 It sits on private land.2 Please ask the landowner before going near it, and do not try to climb it.
- Salmon Lake Mountain, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_Lake_Mountain (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Forest Fire Lookout Association, New York State Chapter, June 2025 newsletter, https://www.nysffla.org/News2025/2025%20Jun%20final.pdf (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- New York lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Luxury resort planned for Adirondacks' pristine Whitney Park, Adirondack Explorer, https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/texas-developer-poised-to-purchase-whitney-estate (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- $125M Whitney Park estate deal falls through in the Adirondacks, Adirondack Explorer, https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/communities/economy/whitney-deal-falls-through/ (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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association, New York State Chapter (opens another site) 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
- 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
- Salmon Lake Mountain (Wikipedia) (opens another site)
- Luxury resort planned for Adirondacks' pristine Whitney Park (Adirondack Explorer) (opens another site)
- $125M Whitney Park estate deal falls through in the Adirondacks (Adirondack Explorer) (opens another site)
- FFLA New York lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Forest Fire Lookout Association, New York State Chapter: work on Salmon Lake Mountain (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.