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Fire lookout · St. Lawrence County, New York

Sand Hill

Sand Hill fire tower near Massena, St. Lawrence County: 80 ft Aermotor LS-40 from about 1950, officially closed 1959, removed about 1961; only footers seen in 2012.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Officially closed in 1959 and removed around 1961; only the footers for the tower and cabin remained when the DEC plan recorded the site in 2012.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Roadside site on State Highway 420, across from the Norfolk fire station. Only footers remain; the DEC plan describes the site as of 2012.

Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
Roadside site per the DEC unit plan. Only footers remain to see.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor LS-40 steel fire tower with observer's cabinThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1950
Height
80 ft (24.4 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
NY Conservation Department
Land
Unknown
Location
St. Lawrence County, New York
Coordinates
44.86540, −74.86085
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-sand-hill

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its 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.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and its recorded height.

Downloads about 4.1 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. 1950 BuiltStarr's list gives 1950 as build and first-use year; an April 1950 paper says the station was started the year beforeSources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1950 First staffedApril 1950 paper says the station would be operated by Vernon Fearica of Brasher Iron WorksSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1957 EventLast entry for the tower in the state's annual report to the LegislatureSource: nhlr.org
  4. 1959 ClosedStation officially closedSource: nhlr.org
  5. 1961 RemovedRemoved by Forest Rangers around 1961Sources: nhlr.org, extapps.dec.ny.gov
  6. No record between 1961 and 2012
  7. 2012 Condition assessmentOnly the footers for the tower and observer's cabin remainedSource: extapps.dec.ny.gov
  8. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Sand Hill was a state fire tower near Massena, in St. Lawrence County.1,2 An April 1950 newspaper said a station started the year before by the Conservation Department would be operated by a man from Brasher Iron Works.1 Starr's list dates the tower to 1950 and says it was one of ten towers bought that year with a state fund.3 Read literally, the newspaper puts the start in 1949, so the two sources differ by a year.1,3

The tower was never run full time.3 Fire wardens ran it as a secondary facility on a need-by-need basis.3 Its last entry in the state's annual report to the Legislature was in 1957.3 It was officially closed in 1959, and Forest Rangers removed it around 1961.3

Starr's list gives the tower a height of 80 feet, as an Aermotor LS-40.3 A state unit plan for the St. Lawrence Flatlands also gives 80 feet and dates the tower from about 1950 to 1961.4

The plan says that when the site was seen in 2012, only the footings of the tower and an observer's cabin remained.4 The site is on State Highway 420, across from the Norfolk fire station.4 No source I found describes the site since 2012.

  1. Sand Hill, Forest Lookouts (Eastern US Lookouts), quoting the Syracuse Herald Journal, April 23, 1950, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/sand-hill1.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. New York Lookouts by County, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ny-co/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. New York Fire Tower List, compiled by Bill Starr, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/media/2974/new_york_fire_tower_list_by_bill_starr_3-14-11.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. St. Lawrence Flatlands Unit Management Plan, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, https://extapps.dec.ny.gov/docs/lands_forests_pdf/stlflatump3.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

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 LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) Gave us: links easternuslookouts.weebly.com · No licence stated; facts only (county, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, status, height, design hints, register links). The site's own historical quotes, newspaper citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, 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.