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Fire lookout · Suffolk County, New York

Telescope Hill Lookout Site

Also known as Telescope Hill (Selden)

Telescope Hill's 1918 fire tower near Selden was removed in 1960; the summit now carries radio facilities, and sources disagree on who owns the land.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed in 1960; the summit now hosts radio tower facilities

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 towerAermotor LS-40 with a second cab added during the warThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Steel
Built
1918
Height
Unknown
Elevation
323 ft (99 m)
Agency
NY State Conservation Commission, Bureau of Forest Fire Control
Land
Unknown
Location
Suffolk County, New York
Coordinates
40.84483, −73.03283
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-telescope-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.3 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. 1918 BuiltErected in the fall of 1918 as the first of Long Island's fire lookoutsSources: en.wikipedia.org, firetower.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1919 Fire120 fires reported between March 17 and June 15, 1919Source: en.wikipedia.org
  3. 1919 First staffedFirst fire observer Al Lucas, who served two years; tower in operation March 1919Source: en.wikipedia.org
  4. No record between 1919 and 1938
  5. 1938 StaffedFrank Forsyth on duty (spelled Forsythe in the 1938 item)Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1938 and 1959
  7. 1959 AbandonedState ended support for fire towers on Long Island after the 1959 season; lookout services abandonedSources: en.wikipedia.org, firetower.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  8. 1959 EventTransfer of title to Suffolk County arranged, per Forest LookoutsSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  9. 1960 RemovedTower removedSources: en.wikipedia.org, firetower.org
  10. No record between 1960 and 2009
  11. 2009 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered with FFLOS January 18, 2009 (US 556)Source: firetower.org
  12. 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Telescope Hill, near Selden on Long Island, was the site of the first of the island's fire lookout towers. The New York State Conservation Commission erected it in the fall of 1918, and it went into operation in March 1919.1,2,3 Wikipedia describes a 60-foot Aermotor LS40 with a cab on top,1 while a December 1918 Port Jefferson Echo item quoted by Forest Lookouts gives its height as sixty-nine feet.3 The two heights do not agree, so treat both as approximate.1,3

Al Lucas, the first observer, served two years.1 Frank Forsythe was on duty by March 1938,3 and Wikipedia says Frank Forsyth served until 1948.1 The two sources spell his name differently.3,1

Between March 17 and June 15, 1919, the tower logged 120 fires.1 During the Second World War, a second cab was added beneath the first.1 The upper cab housed Civil Defense personnel, while the forest fire observer used the lower one.1,2 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register also credits the tower with spotting three Nazi U-boats along the seaboard, and says one of those sightings directly led to the capture of a German U-boat.2

State support for Long Island's fire towers ended after the 1959 season.1 A Forest Lookouts item dated October 1959 says the State dropped the lookout services for cost reasons, and that a transfer of title to Suffolk County was arranged.3 The tower was taken down in 1960.1,2

The sources do not agree on the land's status. The Former Fire Lookout Sites register says it is now privately held,2 while Forest Lookouts reports only that a transfer of title to Suffolk County was arranged in 1959, not whether it was completed.3

The summit now hosts radio tower facilities, among them those for WALK-FM.1 We found no source that describes what, if anything, remains of the 1918 tower, or whether the public may visit. Check who owns the land before going up there.

  1. Telescope Hill, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescope_Hill (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Telescope Hill Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ny/telescope-hill-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Telescope Hill (Selden), Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/telescope-hill-selden.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Telescope Hill Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Telescope Hill Lookout Site, 1918
(1918)Photo: NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Telescope Hill Lookout Site, 1918
(1918)Photo: NY State Archives, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.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. 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
  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.