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Fire lookout · Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania

Tussey Mountain Tower Site

Steel Aermotor tower on Tussey Mountain, Huntingdon County: built 1933 at 80 feet, removed 1977; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed in 1977; no source describes what remains at the site.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towersteel Aermotor towerThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Steel
Built
1933
Height
80 ft (24.4 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters (ordered the 1933 towers); site in Logan State Forest district
Land
State land
Location
Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania
Coordinates
40.68430, −77.96460
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-pa-tussey-mountain

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 3.4 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. 1910 EventAround 1910 a tree observation post 30 feet above the ground was set up on Tussey Mountain.Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1912 EventA 1912-13 state forestry report says an observatory station was erected on Tussey Mountain along the Pennsylvania Furnace road.Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1912 and 1933
  4. 1933 BuiltThree 80-foot towers were ordered in July 1933 and reported built by August; the Tussey one was among them.Sources: firetower.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1938 AlteredA new aerial signal light was set on top of the tower, per a September 1938 newspaper item.Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1938 and 1977
  7. 1977 RemovedRemoved in 1977.Sources: firetower.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  8. No record between 1977 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.

Tussey Mountain had observation posts before the steel tower.1 Around 1910 a tree post, 30 feet above the ground, was set up.1 A 1912-13 state forestry report describes an observatory station built on the mountain along the Pennsylvania Furnace road.1

In July 1933 the state's chief forest fire warden ordered three new 80-foot observation towers, one of them for Tussey Mountain in Huntingdon County's Logan State Forest district.1 By August a newspaper reported that the three towers had recently been built, the Tussey one among them.1 The register gives 1933 as the build year and calls it a steel Aermotor tower.2

A September 1938 Altoona paper reported that a new aerial signal light had been placed atop the tower.1 People east of the village were at first taken aback by it, but their unease eased once they saw it turn through white, blue and red.1

The register and the lookout history site both say the tower was removed in 1977.2,1

A hawk-watch project's site profile says a former fire tower near Pennsylvania Furnace Road was once a popular place to watch hawks, about five miles southwest of the project's current count site.3 The count site itself is a powerline right-of-way at the crest of the ridge.3 The profile gives no date for that tower, so it is likely, but not certain, that it is this one.3 No source I read describes what, if anything, remains at the tower site today.2,1

  1. Tussey Mountain, Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/tussey-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Tussey Mountain Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, Forest Fire Lookout Association (firetower.org), http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/pa/tussey-mountain-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Tussey Mountain Hawk Watch, HawkCount, https://www.hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=438 (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, 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

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