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Fire lookout · Clinton County, Pennsylvania

Riansares Tower Site

Riansares fire tower, Clinton County PA: steel tower built 1921, removed in the 1990s; summit cabin still in use; site reached by road.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower removed in the 1990s, per the register and a photo caption. The cabin on the summit remains in use, per the caption.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. A 2023 volunteer notice for a DCNR vista cleanup gives driving directions to the summit and invites volunteers. No gate or permit rule is mentioned.

Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towersteel Aermotor towerThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Steel
Built
1921
Height
60 ft (18.3 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Bald Eagle State Forest
Land
State land
Location
Clinton County, Pennsylvania
Coordinates
41.05190, −77.37950
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-pa-riansares

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 3.6 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 BuiltSteel tower and its cabin built in 1921 per the photo caption. The register gives 1921; a December 1921 paper calls it the new steel fire tower.Sources: firetower.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com, flickr.com
  2. 1921 StaffedA state forest ranger, Russel E. Berry of Loganton, was in charge (December 1921 paper). This is not confirmed as tower observer work.Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1921 and 1937
  4. 1937 StaffedHarry E. Lamey was watchman at the tower.Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1938 StaffedHarry E. Lamey was employed as towerman on the large steel fire tower on Mount Riansares.Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1938 and 1990
  7. 1990 RemovedRegister and photo caption say the tower was removed in the 1990s. The year shown is the start of the decade, not a dated event.Sources: firetower.org, flickr.com
  8. No record between 1990 and 2008
  9. 2008 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered September 16, 2008, nominated by Henry Isenberg.Source: firetower.org
  10. 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.

Riansares Mountain, in Clinton County's Bald Eagle State Forest, got a steel fire tower in 1921.1,2 A December 1921 paper called it the new steel fire tower and said a road to the summit had just been completed.3 Two springs were nearby, and the forestry department had built a cabin near the tower.3 A state forest ranger, Russel E. Berry of Loganton, was in charge.3

A 1936 paper gave the tower as 60 feet tall and noted that a CCC camp was nearby.3 The name is spelled differently across sources: the 1921 paper writes Rainares, and the 1936 paper writes Mount Riansares.3

Staffing is documented in the late 1930s.3 In 1937 Harry E. Lamey was watchman at the tower.3 In 1938 he was hired as towerman, a job meant to last until the threat of fire passed.3

The register and a photo caption both date the tower's removal to the 1990s.1,4 The caption adds that the cabin is still in use.4

A 2023 volunteer cleanup notice says the summit is reached by road: drivers are told to go to the top of the mountain and park near a communications tower.2 The same notice mentions a former fire tower house with a 911 address on Riansares Road.2 The sources do not say outright that this is the same building as the cabin in the photo caption.2,4 The Eastern lookouts page files the site under Bald Eagle State Park, while the 2023 notice and the caption both place it in Bald Eagle State Forest.3,2,4

No source describes what, if anything, remains of the tower footings.

  1. Riansares Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/pa/riansares-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Mount Riansares Vista Cleanup slated for April 30, CleanScapes, https://cleanscapes-ncpa.com/2023/04/06/mount-riansares-vista-cleanup-slated-for-april-30/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Riansares, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/riansares.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Stone Cabin (2), Forest fire warden's cabin, Bald Eagle State Forest, Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholas_t/8630667154/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, county, 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: location, height, agency, ownership, 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, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.