Fire lookout · Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania
Greenwood Fire Tower
A 60-foot Aermotor lookout on Broad Mountain, built 1921 per the NHLR; still standing and reached on foot, though build-date accounts disagree.
- Standing
- Open to the public
- Verified
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Open to the public. Reached on foot by trails from the park on PA 305 and the Standing Stone Trail; no source read says whether the tower itself can be climbed.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Trail
- Fire Tower Loop Trail from the park; the Greenwood Spur climb from Alan Seeger Natural Area is short but very steep.
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerAermotorThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1921
- Height
- 60 ft (18.3 m)
- Elevation
- 2,376 ft (724 m)
- Agency
- Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry
- Land
- State land
- Location
- Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania
- Coordinates
- 40.68151, −77.73859
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-pa-greenwood
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.
Downloads about 3.8 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
- 1921 BuiltNHLR gives 1921 for a 60-foot Aermotor tower. A 1922 visitor account says eighty feet, and a hiking guide says the 1930s.Sources: nhlr.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com, mountaintravelguide.com
- 1935 EventA Coast and Geodetic Survey station was described at the tower site on Broad Mountain.Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1935 and 2017
- 2017 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered December 6, 2017 as US 1252, PA 21, nominated by Ron Stafford.Source: 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 Greenwood Fire Tower crowns Broad Mountain in Huntingdon County, at 2,376 feet.1,2 It sits on the highest point of the Standing Stone Trail, and the hike up from Alan Seeger Natural Area is brief but steep.2
The National Historic Lookout Register dates the tower to 1921 and describes it as a 60-foot Aermotor, administered by the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry.1 A 1935 Coast and Geodetic Survey station was described at the tower site, so the structure was in place by then.3
Not every source agrees on the build. A visitor's account from 1922, quoted by a lookout-history site, describes the tower as eighty feet tall, of steel construction, with a watch box at the top.3 A hiking guide dates the tower to the 1930s.4 We have kept the Register's 1921 date and 60-foot height, but the early history is not fully settled.
Staffing is harder to pin down. The same guide says the tower is still in use for spotting forest fires, but we could not check that against an official record.4 The pages we read do not say who worked there or when it last served as a lookout.
The tower is still standing.2 The Register lists it as US 1252, PA 21, registered on December 6, 2017, and nominated by Ron Stafford.1
The routes we read are all hikes.2,4 The Fire Tower Loop Trail is a loop to the tower on Broad Mountain, with its trailhead near the Visitor Center, and the park entrance is on PA 305.4 None of the pages we read say whether the tower itself can be climbed, so treat it as a lookout to admire from the trail, and check with the land managers before going up any steps.
- Greenwood Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/pa/greenwood-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Greenwood Spur, Centred Outdoors, https://centredoutdoors.org/destinations/greenwood-spur/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Greenwood - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/greenwood.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Fire Tower Loop Trail, Huntingdon County Pennsylvania Hiking Trails, Mountain Travel Guide, https://www.mountaintravelguide.com/Pennsylvania/huntingdon/Hiking/FireTowerLoopTrail.htm (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, type, 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
- Fire Towers of Pennsylvania (ArcGIS StoryMap, Shawn Lesitsky) (opens another site) Gave us: what it is built of, design, height, ownership, 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
- OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures (opens another site) Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 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 1252 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Greenwood Spur (Centred Outdoors) (opens another site)
- Fire Tower Loop Trail, Huntingdon County Pennsylvania Hiking Trails (Mountain Travel Guide) (opens another site)
- Fire Towers of Pennsylvania StoryMap (Shawn Lesitsky) (opens another site)
- Greenwood (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
- OpenStreetMap node 1345476943 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.