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Fire lookout · Saratoga County, New York

Spruce Mountain Fire Tower

1928 Aermotor fire tower on Spruce Mountain in Corinth, manned until 1988, restored and opened in 2015; the tower is closed for structural concerns and the trail closes in hunting season.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. Tower closed due to structural concerns per DEC; trail open to the public except during bear and deer hunting seasons

Visit & stay

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

Access

Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
About 2.4-mile round trip; crosses state, Saratoga PLAN and private land; closed during bear and deer hunting seasons
Staffing
Not staffed (as of 2017-12-27)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower73-foot steel Aermotor LS-40 fire tower, built 1928The design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1928
Height
73 ft (22.3 m)
Elevation
2,031 ft (619 m)
Agency
NYS Department of Environmental Conservation
Land
State land
Location
Saratoga County, New York
Coordinates
43.21637, −73.90621
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-spruce-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.

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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1928 BuiltBuilt with a 73-foot steel Aermotor LS-40 tower on the summitSources: nhlr.org, content.govdelivery.com, summitpost.org
  2. No record between 1928 and 1988
  3. 1988 Last staffedManned until 1988Sources: content.govdelivery.com, summitpost.org
  4. No record between 1988 and 2015
  5. 2015 RestoredRestoration began in 2014 with Student Conservation Association members; DEC finished in 2015 and the tower reopened to the publicSources: content.govdelivery.com, saratogaplan.org, nhlr.org
  6. 2017 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered January 26, 2017 as NHLR US 1182Source: nhlr.org
  7. 2023 ClosedAfter volunteers noted a structural issue on Sept 21, 2023, the Spruce Mountain tower was closed pending an engineer's inspection.Source: nysffla.org
  8. 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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Spruce Mountain lies within the Saratoga County town of Corinth, and a 73-foot fire tower tops its summit.1 The state describes it as a steel Aermotor LS-40 that went up in 1928.2

The tower was staffed until 1988, and the register's 2017 visit reports list it as unstaffed.2,3 The state had come to rely more on aerial detection, and it phased out the towers.2 In 1990 it closed the last five fire towers still in use.2

After the lookout ended, restoration began in 2014, with Student Conservation Association members doing the first work.2 The state finished the restoration in 2015.4,2 The trail came about through a partnership between the state, Saratoga County and Saratoga PLAN.4 One trail-guide banner gives September 2016 as the reopening date, which conflicts with the state's 2015 announcement that the tower was open.5,2 A 2017 visit report notes that radio repeater equipment has been installed on the tower.3

Today the tower is closed.4 The Saratoga PLAN trail page, citing the DEC, says the tower itself is closed because of structural concerns.4 The public may hike the trail outside the hunting seasons, and it is about 2.4 miles round trip.4,2 For 2026, the hunting-season closure runs from September 19 to December 6.4 The route crosses land owned by Lyme Adirondack Timberlands II under a cooperative agreement with the state.2

  1. Spruce Mountain (New York), Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce_Mountain_(New_York) (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. DEC Announces the Opening of Trail and Rehabilitated Fire Tower on Spruce Mountain, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/NYSDEC/bulletins/11e522f (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Spruce Mountain Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ny/spruce-mountain-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Spruce Mountain Trail, Saratoga PLAN, https://saratogaplan.org/explore-parks-and-trails/spruce-mountain-trail/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  5. Spruce Mountain, SummitPost, https://www.summitpost.org/spruce-mountain/410426 (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

May 2016 photo
May 2016 photo (2016)Photo: Laurie Rankin, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Spruce Mountain Fire Tower
Photo: Laurie Rankin, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
July 17, 2016 photo
July 17, 2016 photo (2016)Photo: Jack Kelley, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. Map and Coordinates List for NYS DEC Firetowers (Andy Arthur) Gave us: ownership, links Andy Arthur, andyarthur.org (CC BY 3.0) · CC BY 3.0, credit: Andy Arthur, andyarthur.org. Facts + short description text reused under that licence. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.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 FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  7. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  8. 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.