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Fire lookout · Clinton County, Pennsylvania

Whetham Tower Site

Clinton County, PA steel tower built 1923 and removed 1990 (early 1990s per a 2012 caption); a 2012 caption says the cabin sits at the site and the tower foundation remains; a PA Environment Digest item of unconfirmed date says the cabin serves as The Nature Conservancy Lodge.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower removed (1990 per the register). A 2012 caption says the cabin sits at the site and the tower foundation remains. A PA Environment Digest item of unconfirmed date says the cabin serves as The Nature Conservancy Lodge. No source says whether the public can visit or rent the lodge.

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 tower about 60 feet tall on four legs, supporting a square metal cabin (Forest Lookouts quotes an NGS description); Blaw-Knox steel per the registerThe design: Blaw-Knox
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1923
Height
60 ft (18.3 m)
Elevation
1,987 ft (606 m)
Agency
Unknown
Land
Unknown
Location
Clinton County, Pennsylvania
Coordinates
41.31507, −77.57165
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-pa-whetham

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 3.5 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. 1920 FireSmoke seen from the tower; fire started by a railroad engine's sparks was put out by Ranger Merrill and section crewsSource: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1920 StaffedRanger R.K. Merrill on duty at a fire observation tower between the Sugar Camp runs, per an October 28, 1920 report. The report predates the 1923 build date, so it may be a different structure.Source: easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1923 BuiltSteel tower built in 1923 (register and 1926 article)Sources: firetower.org, easternuslookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1923 and 1990
  5. 1990 RemovedRemoved in 1990 per the register; a 2012 caption says early 1990sSources: firetower.org, commons.wikimedia.org
  6. No record between 1990 and 2008
  7. 2008 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered September 16, 2008Source: firetower.org
  8. 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 Whetham lookout stood on Sugar Camp ridge in Clinton County, overlooking Rattlesnake Run.1 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register describes it as a steel Blaw-Knox tower built in 1923.2 A 1926 Lock Haven Express article, quoted on the Forest Lookouts site, gives its height as sixty feet and says the name honors John D. Whetham, an early local settler who worked in lumber.1

An October 1920 report, also quoted on the Forest Lookouts site, predates that 1923 date. It says Forest Ranger R.K. Merrill was on duty at a fire observation tower between the Sugar Camp runs when he saw smoke.1 Merrill and section crews from Whetham, Glen Union and Ferney put the fire out, which a railroad engine's sparks had started.1 The sources do not show whether an earlier tower stood on that ridge.

The register says the tower was removed in 1990.2 A 2012 photo caption on Wikimedia Commons gives the removal as the early 1990s and says the cabin sits at the site.3

The caption describes the cabin as a refurbished Civilian Conservation Corps building within the West Branch Research and Demonstration Forest, a Nature Conservancy-owned preserve in Clinton County, and says the tower's foundation remains.3 A PA Environment Digest newsletter item, whose date we could not confirm, says the former fire tower cabin serves as The Nature Conservancy Lodge.4 A hiking notice in the same item places a newly relocated trail not far from the former tower site.4 No source we read says whether the public can visit the site or rent the lodge.

  1. Whetham, Forest Lookouts, https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/whetham.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Whetham Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/pa/whetham-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Flickr - Nicholas T - Whetham Cabin (Revisited), Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-_Nicholas_T_-_Whetham_Cabin_(Revisited).jpg (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Prowl the Sproul hiking notice, PA Environment Digest, http://www.paenvironmentdigest.com/newsletter/default.asp?NewsletterArticleID=36656 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Restored Civilian Conservation Corps cabin at the site of the Whetham Fire Tower
Restored Civilian Conservation Corps cabin at the site of the Whetham Fire Tower (2012)Photo: Nicholas A. Tonelli · CC BY 2.0 · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, 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: type, height, 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, dates, photos, 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.