Fire lookout · Pike County, Pennsylvania
Buckhorn Ridge Lookout
A 60-foot Blaw-Knox tower in Delaware State Forest, registered 1998; the register says in active service, but a 2017 visit saw it unstaffed and advised against climbing.
- Standing
- Restricted access
- Verified
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Restricted access
Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. Visit reports say do not climb: the 2017 visit found rotted steps and a boarded cab door. No posted closure found.
- Can you climb it?
- No
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Trail
- Directions to the tower are signed from Fire Tower Road in Milford. The 2017 visit report says not to climb it.
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- sources disagree
- Type
- Cab on a towerBlaw-Knox steel tower with a 7 x 7 ft metal cabThe design: Blaw-Knox
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1935
- Height
- 60 ft (18.3 m)
- Elevation
- 1,474 ft (449 m)
- Agency
- Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry
- Land
- State land
- Location
- Pike County, Pennsylvania
- Coordinates
- 41.39218, −74.83300
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-pa-buckhorn-ridge
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
- 1917 EventEarlier bald tower at the site, used circa 1917 and no longer standingSource: firetower.org
- No record between 1917 and 1935
- 1935 BuiltSource: Fire Towers of Pennsylvania (ArcGIS StoryMap, Shawn Lesitsky)
- No record between 1935 and 1998
- 1998 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on the National Historic Lookout Register, December 15, 1998Source: nhlr.org
- 2008 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered on the Former Fire Lookout Sites register under the site record, September 16, 2008Source: firetower.org
- 2017 EventVisit found the tower in terrible condition, cab door boarded, and advised against climbingSource: nhlr.org
- 2021 EventVisit found the tower in rough shape but still standingSource: nhlr.org
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Buckhorn Ridge tower stands in the Delaware State Forest in Pike County.1 It is a Blaw-Knox tower, a brand the National Historic Lookout Register says is less common in Pennsylvania than Aermotor, and it calls this one of the few of its kind left in the state and the sole one in District 19.1 It is a 60-foot tower with a 7-by-7-foot metal cab.1
I could not confirm when it went up, and the register gives no build year. The register does record that the tower was registered on December 15, 1998.1
The site had a lookout before this one. The Former Fire Lookout Sites register lists a bald tower there, used around 1917 and no longer standing.2 An Eastern US Lookouts page says an open observation point was set up at the site before 1918.3
The register says the tower works as a cooperative fire-detection post with the New Jersey Forest Fire Service, and that it is in active service.1 A 2017 visit note says it has not been staffed in a long time, which disagrees with that description.1 The same visit found the steps rotted, the cab door boarded up with a metal bar, and advised against climbing.1 A 2021 visit found it in poor shape but still standing.1
The newest visit note is from June 2021.1 The 2017 note is the one that warns against climbing it.1 Directions are signed from Fire Tower Road in Milford.1 I did not find a posted closure. Before you go, check with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry, which administers the tower.1
- Buckhorn Ridge Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/pa/buckhorn-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Buckhorn Ridge Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/pa/buckhorn-ridge-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Buckhorn Ridge, Forest Lookouts (Pennsylvania section), Eastern US Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/buckhorn-ridge.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
Photos
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Where sources disagree
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Sources disagree on whether it still stands.
- NHLR: Standing
- FFLOS: Gone
- Fire Towers of Pennsylvania (ArcGIS StoryMap, Shawn Lesitsky): Standing
NHLR lists lookouts that were standing when registered.
Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, what it is built of, status, 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
- Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) (opens another site) Gave us: 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
- Fire Towers of Pennsylvania (ArcGIS StoryMap, Shawn Lesitsky) (opens another site) Gave us: height, ownership, dates, photos, links Pennsylvania fire towers StoryMap (ArcGIS) · No licence stated; facts only (county, agency, built year, height, builder). · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) 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
- 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
- NHLR register entry US 296 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- FFLOS register entry US 231 (firetower.org) (opens another site)
- NHLR register entry (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Fire Towers of Pennsylvania StoryMap (Shawn Lesitsky) (opens another site)
- Buckhorn Ridge (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.