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Fire lookout · Cameron County, Pennsylvania

Three Runs Tower Site (Cameron County)

Steel Blaw-Knox fire tower near Three Runs, Cameron County PA, built 1923 and removed in 1979; the site is now a parking area in Quehanna Wild Area.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed in 1979; the tower and its cabin no longer remain

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. Former site is a parking area for Quehanna Trail hikers in the Quehanna Wild Area; the approach road becomes a high-clearance 4x4 track at its east end

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Parking area at the former site; hike of about half a mile to Three Runs Vista; the road passes private properties

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerSteel Blaw-Knox towerThe design: Blaw-Knox
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1923
Height
Unknown
Elevation
2,206 ft (672 m)
Agency
Unknown
Land
Unknown
Location
Cameron County, Pennsylvania
Coordinates
41.22145, −78.11612
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-pa-three-runs-cameron-county

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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

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

  1. 1923 BuiltRegister: steel Blaw-Knox tower built 1923Source: firetower.org
  2. No record between 1923 and 1979
  3. 1979 RemovedRegister and a hiking account both give 1979 as the removal yearSources: firetower.org, pa-hikestrails.com-us.com
  4. No record between 1979 and 2008
  5. 2008 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered September 16, 2008Source: firetower.org
  6. 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 Former Fire Lookout Sites register describes a steel Blaw-Knox tower at Three Runs in Cameron County, built in 1923.1 The register gives the site an elevation of 2,206 feet (672 metres).1

A trail that leads to the site is still called the Three Runs Tower Trail, in the Quehanna Wild Area.2 The wild area covers parts of Elk and Moshannon State Forests.3 Both the register and a hiking account say the tower was removed in 1979.1,4

Neither the tower nor its cabin is still there.2 The site is now a parking area that serves part of the Quehanna Trail.2 From there, a hike of about half a mile reaches the Three Runs Vista.2

The road in starts as an easy gravel road and turns rocky and dirt before its east end, where it becomes a high-clearance four-wheel-drive track.2 The trail listing asks drivers to respect the private properties the road passes through.2

  1. Three Runs Tower Site (Cameron County), Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/pa/three-runs-tower-site-cameron-county/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Three Runs Tower Road / Chestnut Draft Road, onX Offroad, https://www.onxmaps.com/offroad/trails/us/pennsylvania/three-runs-tower-road-chestnut-draft-road-8yzym2drxz14 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Quehanna Wild Area, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quehanna_Wild_Area (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Quehanna Trail: Discovering the Eastern Sections of the Wild Area, pa-hikestrails.com-us.com, https://pa-hikestrails.com-us.com/trails/quehanna-trail/348-quehanna-trail-discovering-the-eastern-sections-of-the-wild-area (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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, 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.