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Fire lookout · Indiana County, Pennsylvania

Glen Campbell Tower Site

Indiana County, PA steel Aermotor fire tower erected 1921 with Walter Sherwin as towerman; register says removed 1990; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Register records the tower as removed in 1990; no source describes what remains at the site

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 towerSteel Aermotor tower; a 1921 notice described it as an observation tower 47 feet highThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Steel
Built
1921
Height
47 ft (14.3 m)
Elevation
1,985 ft (605 m)
Agency
The state, as the 1921 newspaper notice put it; no agency named
Land
Unknown
Location
Indiana County, Pennsylvania
Coordinates
40.84479, −78.84892
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-pa-glen-campbell

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 3.3 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. 1921 BuiltErected by the state on Walter Sherwin's property; completed the week of October 11, 1921Sources: easternuslookouts.weebly.com, firetower.org
  2. 1921 First staffedWalter Sherwin appointed towerman at Glen Campbell fire towerSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1922 EventA March 30, 1922 notice says the tower had been placed in operationSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1925 StaffedIndiana Evening Gazette notice of October 7, 1925: tower to be manned by Fire Warden Walter SherwinSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1925 and 1990
  6. 1990 RemovedRegister records the tower as removedSource: firetower.org
  7. No record between 1990 and 2008
  8. 2008 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered September 16, 2008; nominated by Henry IsenbergSource: firetower.org
  9. 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.

The state erected a fire lookout tower about three miles north of Glen Campbell, on property belonging to Walter Sherwin.1 A notice in the Indiana Progress that September called it an observation tower 47 feet high, one of five towers in the district meant to guard the state forest against fires, all to be connected by telephone.1 The register places the site in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, and describes it as a steel Aermotor tower built in 1921.2

When the tower was completed in October 1921, Walter Sherwin was appointed its towerman, and the plan was to have all the fire towers manned by October 15.1 By March 1922 the tower had been placed in operation.1 In October 1925 the Indiana Evening Gazette reported that Fire Warden Walter Sherwin of Glen Campbell would man the lookout.1

The register says the tower was removed in 1990.2 Henry Isenberg nominated the site, and it was recorded on September 16, 2008.2

The register gives the site's elevation as 1,985 feet, or 605 meters.2 The register says nothing about what remains at the site today or whether it is open to the public, so check access before going there.2

  1. Glen Campbell, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/glen-campbell.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Glen Campbell Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/pa/glen-campbell-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

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