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Fire lookout · Hamilton County, New York

T-Lake Mountain

Hamilton County, NY fire-watch tower built in 1916 on T-Lake Mountain; closed after the 1970 season and brought down by Army engineers in 1977. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Brought down by Army engineers' explosive test in 1977; remains removed by helicopter. No source describes the site today.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Access unknown

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

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-foot Aermotor LL25 fire towerThe design: Aermotor LL-25
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1916
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
New York State Conservation Commission (1916); the state Conservation Department by 1928
Land
Unknown
Location
Hamilton County, New York
Coordinates
43.44724, −74.57745
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-t-lake-mountain

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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.9 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. 1916 BuiltConservation Commission built a 50-foot Aermotor LL25 tower on the mountainSource: en.wikipedia.org
  2. 1916 First staffedNew mountain station in operation for part of the season, per the state's 6th Annual Report as quoted on Forest LookoutsSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1918 AlteredWooden steps added inside the tower in 1918 or 1919Source: en.wikipedia.org
  4. 1923 EventNew observer's cabin built, one of several that yearSource: nysffla.org
  5. 1928 StaffedObserver Emerson Nye resigned after about ten years; the article gives his age as 78Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1931 AlteredSelf-supporting staircase, a tower within a tower, replaced the wooden stepsSource: en.wikipedia.org
  7. No record between 1931 and 1970
  8. 1970 ClosedFire watching ceased at the end of the 1970 season because aerial detection had made lookouts less necessarySource: en.wikipedia.org
  9. 1977 DestroyedArmy engineers tested shaped explosive charges on the tower, which brought it downSource: en.wikipedia.org
  10. 1977 RemovedRemains removed by helicopter a few weeks after the explosive testSource: en.wikipedia.org
  11. 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.

T-Lake Mountain stands in the Adirondacks, north-northwest of Witherbee in Hamilton County.1 The state set up a fire-watch post there in 1916, when the Conservation Commission put up a 50-foot Aermotor LL25 lookout tower.2,1 A state annual report from that year says a new mountain station near Piseco Lake was in operation for part of the season.2

The first tower had no stairs, only a ladder up the outside.1 Wooden steps were added inside in 1918 or 1919, and in 1931 a self-supporting staircase, a tower within a tower, replaced them.1

The sources disagree about its height. A 1924 newspaper item, quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, calls the tower one hundred feet high.2 Wikipedia gives fifty feet.1

Emerson Nye was the observer. The newspaper calls him the veteran observer of the post, and says he had been spotting fires there for about ten years when he resigned in 1928.2 The article gives his age as 78.2

In 1923 the state built several new observers' cabins, and T-Lake was one of the places that got one.3

The state closed the post at the end of the 1970 season, after aerial detection had made lookouts less necessary.1 Wikipedia also calls the tower a non-conforming structure in the newly established West Canada Lakes Wilderness Area. Residents around Piseco Lake asked the state several times, without success, to keep it for air traffic control at Piseco Airport.1

In 1977 Army engineers tested shaped explosive charges on the tower, which brought it down. A few weeks later, the remains were removed by helicopter.1

The tower is gone.4 No source we read describes the summit today, says what if anything remains there, or says whether the land is open to visitors, so we cannot say what a visit would show.

  1. T Lake Mountain, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_Lake_Mountain (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. T Lake Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Eastern US lookouts), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/t-lake-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Forest Fire Lookout Association, New York State Chapter, newsletter, January 2023, https://www.nysffla.org/News2023/2023%20Jan%20final.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. New York lookout list, 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. 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. 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, staffing, 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.