Fire lookout · Centre County, Pennsylvania
Summit Tower
Also known as Sandy Ridge (Summit), Sandy Ridge Fire Tower
Centre County, PA steel tower; a 1924 newspaper gives 60 ft, not the 80 ft in our record, and the 1921 build date and 2018 replacement could not be confirmed.
- Status unknown
- Access unknown
- Verified
Status unknown: We do not know yet whether it still stands. No readable recent source; the record says standing, and it says a replacement was built in 2018 that we could not confirm
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Access unknown
We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- sources disagree
- Type
- Cab on a towersteel structure (1924 newspaper description); Aermotor maker not confirmed in sources readThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1921
- Height
- 80 ft (24.4 m)
- Elevation
- 2,306 ft (703 m)
- Agency
- Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry (owner per 1993 newspaper item)
- Land
- State land
- Location
- Centre County, Pennsylvania
- Coordinates
- 40.77844, −78.24961
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-pa-summit
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
- 1921 BuiltSource: Fire Towers of Pennsylvania (ArcGIS StoryMap, Shawn Lesitsky)
- 1924 EventAltoona Tribune item (September 20, 1924), quoted by Forest Lookouts: steel tower sixty feet high, about 2,300 feet above sea level, with views over 325,000 acresSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1924 and 1993
- 1993 EventVandalism reported in the Altoona Mirror on May 5, 1993: six windows broken, damage set at $300Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1993 and 2018
- 2018 Replaced by a new structureSource: Fire Towers of Pennsylvania (ArcGIS StoryMap, Shawn Lesitsky)
- TodayStatus unknownWe do not know whether it still stands.
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 Summit Tower, also called the Sandy Ridge Fire Tower, is in Centre County, Pennsylvania.1 A September 1924 newspaper item, quoted by the Forest Lookouts site, calls it a steel structure, sixty feet tall, sitting about 2,300 feet above sea level. The writer said the view from the steel structure took in 325,000 acres of forest land in Centre, Cambria and Clearfield counties.1
Our own record gives a 1921 build date, an Aermotor design and an 80-foot height. The 1924 height does not match the 80 feet, and we could not confirm the build date or maker from a page we could read. The two heights may describe different towers, or the record may be wrong; the sources do not settle it.
We found no record of who staffed the tower or of any fire it spotted. The one incident we found is a May 1993 item, also quoted by the same site, which reports six windows broken in the tower and damage set at $300.1 The item describes the tower as owned by the state Bureau of Forestry.1
Statewide, the state's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources began a $4.6 million project in September 2017 to replace 16 forest fire lookout towers, and many of the original towers still in use were put up in the 1920s through 1940.2 We could not tie the Summit tower to that list. Our record says it was replaced in 2018, but we could not confirm that from a page we could open.
We found no readable recent source on the tower's condition or access, and the record lists it as standing. The 1993 item names the state Bureau of Forestry as owner, so anyone who wants to visit should ask that agency about access rather than climb the tower.1
- Sandy Ridge (Summit), Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/sandy-ridge-summit.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- DCNR Initiative To Replace, Renovate Fire Towers Across The State, PA Environment Digest, http://www.paenvironmentdigest.com/newsletter/default.asp?NewsletterArticleID=42592 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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Where sources disagree
We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.
Sources disagree on whether it still stands.
- Firefinder research: Status unknown
- Fire Towers of Pennsylvania (ArcGIS StoryMap, Shawn Lesitsky): Standing
Research (2026-10-09) gives unknown where the source records give standing. The page shows the researched status; please tell us if it is wrong.
Sources
- Fire Towers of Pennsylvania (ArcGIS StoryMap, Shawn Lesitsky) (opens another site) Gave us: name, county, type, what it is built of, design, 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, elevation, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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
- DCNR Initiative To Replace, Renovate Fire Towers Across The State (PA Environment Digest) (opens another site)
- Fire Towers of Pennsylvania StoryMap (Shawn Lesitsky) (opens another site)
- Sandy Ridge (Summit) (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
- OpenStreetMap node 357364298 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.