FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · St. Lawrence County, New York

Whites Hill

Aermotor LS40 lookout built 1950 near Parishville, run part-time until 1970 or 1971, since removed; cabin kept at a DEC shop; site today undocumented.

Parts reused at Wilson Hill WMA #1 · Parts reused at Wilson Hill WMA #2

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower removed after the lookout closed in 1970 or 1971; the observer's cabin survives at a DEC shop.

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 tower80-foot Aermotor LS40 steel fire lookout towerThe design: Aermotor LS-40
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1950
Height
79 ft (24.0 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
New York State Conservation Department, later the Department of Environmental Conservation
Land
Unknown
Location
St. Lawrence County, New York
Coordinates
44.59397, −74.77384
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ny-whites-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 3.7 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. 1950 BuiltBuilt by the Conservation Department as an 80-foot Aermotor LS40 steel tower; Bill Starr's list also gives 1950 as the opening yearSources: en.wikipedia.org, nhlr.org
  2. 1951 First staffedBegan lookout operations in 1951; the first season logged 3 fires and 588 visitorsSource: en.wikipedia.org
  3. No record between 1951 and 1970
  4. 1970 ClosedDecommissioned at the end of the 1970 fire season per Bill Starr's list; Wikipedia gives the last season as 1971Sources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org
  5. Date unknown MovedParts reused in two platform towers at Wilson Hill WMA (#1 and #2) per the Forest Fire Lookout Association list; no second source found; no date givenSource: firelookout.org
  6. Date unknown RemovedTower later removed; the state list shows it as removed as of March 2011; no removal date givenSources: en.wikipedia.org, nhlr.org
  7. 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.

Whites Hill is a 1,427-foot peak in the northern Adirondacks, southeast of Parishville in St. Lawrence County.1 In 1950 the state Conservation Department put up an 80-foot Aermotor LS40 steel lookout tower on its summit.1,2 A list of the state's fire towers compiled by Bill Starr gives the same model and height, and says the tower opened that same year.2

The tower began lookout work in 1951, and that first season logged 3 fires and 588 visitors.1 Before 1970 the state ran it part-time, on a need-by-need basis, with fire wardens sent out on assignment from the district forest ranger.2

Sources disagree on when the lookout ended.1,2 The state list says the tower was decommissioned at the end of the 1970 season.2 Wikipedia says operations stopped after the 1971 season, because aircraft were doing more of the spotting, and that the tower was later taken down.1

Wikipedia says the observer's cabin was later moved to the state Department of Environmental Conservation's Trout Lake Shop, where Operations Unit personnel use it.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's New York list also says parts of Whites Hill went into two platform towers at Wilson Hill Wildlife Management Area.3 We found no second source for that reuse.

The association's list marks the Whites Hill tower as gone.3 No source we found describes what remains on the summit today, or whether the hill is open to visitors. The cabin is now at a state shop, not on the mountain.1

  1. Whites Hill (New York), Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whites_Hill_(New_York) (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Fire Towers Operated by the NYS-DEC, Bill Starr (status as of March 2011), http://nhlr.org/media/2974/new_york_fire_tower_list_by_bill_starr_3-14-11.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. 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, height, 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.