Fire lookout · Berks County, Pennsylvania
Port Clinton Fire Tower
Berks/Schuylkill County, PA tower near Weiser State Forest, now inactive and blocked off for climbing; county, build date and height not confirmed.
- Standing
- Closed
- Verified
Closed
The site is closed to visitors. Inactive and blocked off; not open for climbing, per Komoot
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.
- Can you climb it?
- No
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Trail
- The Pinnacle/Weiser Trail starts about half a mile from the tower
- Staffing
- Unknown (as of not stated in the sources read)
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerThe design: Blaw-Knox
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1975
- Height
- 60 ft (18.3 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Weiser State Forest
- Land
- State land
- Location
- Berks County, Pennsylvania
- Coordinates
- 40.60385, −75.99230
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-pa-port-clinton
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 3.4 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
- 1975 BuiltSource: Fire Towers of Pennsylvania (ArcGIS StoryMap, Shawn Lesitsky)
- 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The access road to the Port Clinton Fire Tower has a sign at its entrance that names Weiser State Forest.1 The Forest Lookouts site lists the tower under Berks County, with no build date or height.2 A 2001 Morning Call walk guide, however, calls it a Schuylkill County tower.3 We could not settle the county from these sources, and we could not confirm when the tower was built or how tall it is.
The DCNR trail guide calls the Pinnacle the highest point in Berks County.1 It says hikers can start from the tower itself or from the Pinnacle/Weiser Trail, which is about half a mile away.1
Komoot describes the tower as inactive, blocked off and not open for climbing.4 Treat it as a place to look at from a distance, not a place to climb.
- Pinnacle Trail, Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, https://trails.dcnr.pa.gov/trails/trail/trailview?trailkey=333 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Port Clinton, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/port-clinton.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- A Change of Heart…Walk This Way 2, The Morning Call, https://www.mcall.com/2001/11/05/a-change-of-heartwalk-this-way-2-14/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Port Clinton Fire Tower, Komoot, https://www.komoot.com/highlight/6394957 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.
Sources
- Fire Towers of Pennsylvania (ArcGIS StoryMap, Shawn Lesitsky) (opens another site) Gave us: name, county, type, height, status, agency, 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
- OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures (opens another site) Gave us: location, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, agency, access, staffing, visiting details, 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
- Pinnacle Trail (Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources) (opens another site)
- A Change of Heart…Walk This Way 2 (The Morning Call) (opens another site)
- Port Clinton Fire Tower (Komoot) (opens another site)
- Fire Towers of Pennsylvania StoryMap (Shawn Lesitsky) (opens another site)
- Port Clinton (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
- OpenStreetMap node 4726894922 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.