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Fire lookout · Cattaraugus County, New York

Science Hill

Cattaraugus County, NY tower built 1928 on Mount Irvine, moved to Science Hill in 1931 or 1932 and later reassembled at a school in Ellicottville; sources disagree on the move and reassembly years.

The lookout that stood here was moved. Now at the Ellicottville CTE School

Moved: The structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from. Tower moved to the Ellicottville CTE School; the Science Hill site is listed as gone and no source read describes what remains there

Visit & stay

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

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Moved
Type
Cab on a tower60-foot Aermotor LS40 steel towerThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1928
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
New York Conservation Department, Division of State Parks (original builder)
Land
Unknown
Location
Cattaraugus County, New York
Coordinates
41.99972, −78.72167
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-science-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.

The structure was moved. This view is from the position Firefinder shows for this record, at a typical height for a lookout like it.

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

  1. 1928 BuiltBuilt on Mount Irvine in Allegany State Park by the Division of State ParksSources: nysffla.org, en.everybodywiki.com
  2. 1932 MovedMoved by the Park from Mount Irvine to Science Hill. EverybodyWiki gives 1932; the chapter list says the move came three years after the 1928 erection, which would be 1931Sources: nysffla.org, en.everybodywiki.com
  3. No record between 1932 and 1978
  4. 1978 MovedTaken down by Park personnel and reassembled by an Ellicottville BOCES class at the school. Hamilton College dates the move to the early 1970s insteadSources: nysffla.org, en.everybodywiki.com, academics.hamilton.edu
  5. Date unknown MovedThe lookout was moved to the Ellicottville CTE School.Source: FFLA
  6. TodayMovedThe structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

The Conservation Department's Division of State Parks put up a 60-foot Aermotor LS40 steel tower on Mount Irvine, inside Allegany State Park, in 1928.1,2 The chapter's list puts the move three years after that erection, which would be 1931, while EverybodyWiki gives 1932.1,2 We could not settle the move year. The site sits southwest of the Bradford entrance, close to the Pennsylvania border.1

While it stood on Mount Irvine, the Park kept authority over it and manned it only when fire danger ran high.1

In 1978 Park staff dismantled the tower, and a class from the Ellicottville BOCES rebuilt it beside the school.1,2 A Hamilton College page on fire towers instead describes a third park tower that was taken out of the park and sent to the Ellicottville BOCES, a school, in the early 1970s.3 The Hamilton text we read does not mention Science Hill, so we cannot tell whether it means this tower. The sources disagree on the year, and we could not settle it.

The chapter's current list places the tower at the Ellicottville CTE School and marks the Science Hill site as gone.4,5 The list gives the school's current name as the CTE School, while the older sources name the BOCES school. We found no source that says the two are the same campus.4,2

We found no source that describes public access to the school grounds. Ask the school before you go, and do not climb the tower. We also found no source that describes what remains at the Science Hill site today.

  1. Searchable list of NY Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association New York State Chapter, https://www.nysffla.org/alphalist.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Science Hill (New York), EverybodyWiki, https://en.everybodywiki.com/Science_Hill_(New_York) (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Fire Tower Summits, Hamilton College, https://academics.hamilton.edu/biology/smiller/firetowersummits.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. New York Fire Towers (by County), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ny-co/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. New York Fire Towers, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, 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.