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Fire lookout · Lewis County, New York

Swancott Hill

1940 International Derrick steel lookout on Swancott Hill, Lewis County; closed after 1971, removed, and a tower at Randall, Cortland County is listed as relocated.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed from Swancott Hill. The association lists a standing tower at Randall, Cortland County, as relocated from here; the association lists it as private.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. The tower and cabin are gone. Swancott Hill State Forest is state land with no formal hiking trails. The onX guide says the old site ends at private property and asks visitors to respect the signs.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
onX lists a 1.8-mile route to the old tower site, which ends at private property.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerInternational Derrick model 1933 steel tower (Starr)The design: IDECO
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1940
Height
100 ft (30.4 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
New York State Conservation Department (per the 1939 announcement)
Land
Unknown
Location
Lewis County, New York
Coordinates
43.45502, −75.63207
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-swancott-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 3.8 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. 1939 EventErection of a State Conservation Department fire observation tower on Swancott Hill announced (Forest Lookouts)Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1940 BuiltStarr dates the International Derrick model 1933 tower to 1940; onX says the CCC built it in 1940Sources: nhlr.org, onxmaps.com
  3. No record between 1940 and 1971
  4. 1971 ClosedClosed at the end of the 1971 season as aerial detection came in; tower and cabin then sold and removed (onX)Source: onxmaps.com
  5. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. 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.

In April 1939, the State Conservation Department announced a fire observation tower for Swancott Hill in southern Lewis County, as part of a plan that called for four more towers in that section.1 The Bill Starr list dates the tower to 1940 and describes it as an International Derrick model 1933, the tallest fire tower in New York State equipped with that design, measuring 99 feet 9 inches to the floor of the cab.2 The onX trail guide says the Civilian Conservation Corps built it that year.3

According to the onX guide, the lookout shut at the end of the 1971 season, once aerial detection had taken over, and its tower and cabin were then sold off and taken away.3 Starr puts the dismantling in the mid-1970s, and neither source gives an exact year.2,3

The New York list kept by the Forest Fire Lookout Association marks the Swancott Hill tower as gone.4 The same list places a standing tower at Randall, in Cortland County, as relocated from Swancott, and lists it as private.4 A post on the association's New York Facebook group calls one tower "the tower formerly known as Swancott tower (relocated)."5

Today the Swancott Hill State Forest is state land of 2,024 acres, acquired in parcels between 1936 and 1972. The DEC says it has no formal hiking trails, though old skid trails and dirt roads let visitors enjoy the forest.6 The onX guide describes a 1.8-mile route to the old tower site, where visitors who look hard enough can find concrete blocks that held the tower's guy wires.3 It also says the old site ends at private property and asks visitors to respect the signs.3 No source we read describes the site in more detail, so check the access rules before you go.

  1. Swancott Hill, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/swancott-hill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Fire Towers of New York list, 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). ↩
  3. Swancott Hill Fire Tower Site, onX Offroad, https://www.onxmaps.com/offroad/trails/us/new-york/swancott-hill-fire-tower-site-k36n92gr1z9j (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. New York lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ny/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Facebook post, FFLA New York State Chapter group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/FFLANYS/posts/2992970894280322/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  6. Swancott Hill State Forest, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, https://dec.ny.gov/places/swancott-hill-state-forest (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, 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.