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Fire lookout · Kent County, Rhode Island

Escoheag Hill Fire Tower

An 80-ft steel tower moved to Escoheag Hill and rebuilt by 1938; inactive since about 1990 and its wooden cab burned by vandals after 2009.

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
Not staffed (as of 1990)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower80-ft modified Aermotor steel towerThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1934
Height
80 ft (24.4 m)
Elevation
559 ft (170 m)
Agency
Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management
Land
Unknown
Location
Kent County, Rhode Island
Coordinates
41.60717, −71.77313
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ri-escoheag-hill

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 3.5 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. 1934 BuiltOriginally erected on an unnamed knoll in the George Washington State Forest, Burrillville, per NHLR; a separate CCC history (Valley Breeze) names the structure the 'George Washington Memorial Fire Tower' in Glocester instead, and does not tie a build year to this tower specifically, though it notes the GW camp built three fire towers in 1935 generally -- so the two sources disagree on the town and arguably on the yearSources: nhlr.org, valleybreeze.com
  2. 1937 MovedMoved from its original George Washington forest siteSource: nhlr.org
  3. 1938 Built'Built' field on NHLR detail pageSource: NHLR register entry
  4. 1938 RebuiltReconstructed at the present Escoheag Hill site; the Former Fire Lookout Sites register independently gives the same year and credits the CCCSources: nhlr.org, firetower.org
  5. No record between 1938 and 1990
  6. 1990 Last staffedApproximate; NHLR says the tower has not been an active lookout since around 1990Source: nhlr.org
  7. No record between 1990 and 2009
  8. 2009 BurnedWooden cab (a non-standard replacement) burned by vandals sometime after this year; exact year not given. Destroyed most upper landings and damaged the stairsSource: nhlr.org
  9. 2017 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterDate registered per NHLR detail page: June 9, 2017Source: NHLR register entry
  10. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

An 80-foot steel tower that moved once and burned once

The Escoheag Hill fire tower stands in Kent County, Rhode Island, where it has watched over the state's forests on and off since the late 1930s. It's an 80-foot steel tower built to a modified Aermotor pattern, administered by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.1

The tower did not start out here. According to the National Historic Lookout Register, it went up in 1934 on an unnamed knoll in the George Washington State Forest in Burrillville.1 A Valley Breeze history of Rhode Island's Civilian Conservation Corps camps tells a different story about that first site: it calls the structure the "George Washington Memorial Fire Tower" and places it in Glocester rather than Burrillville, and it doesn't tie a specific build year to that tower, only noting that the CCC's George Washington crew put up three fire towers in 1935.2 The two sources agree only that the tower's first home was somewhere on the George Washington forest lands before it was moved to Escoheag Hill; they disagree on which town that was, and arguably on the year as well. The move itself happened in two steps: the tower came down in 1937, and by the register's account it was back up at its present Escoheag Hill site in 1938.1 The sister Former Fire Lookout Sites register carries a nearby, separately numbered listing called "Escoheag Tower Site," which also puts the rebuild in 1938 and names the Civilian Conservation Corps as the builder.3

The tower had at least one brush with crime early on. A fire-tower history site, summarizing a contemporary newspaper account, reports that in March 1952 forest service staff found the tower had been broken into: a stove, an electric generator, a telephone and other equipment had been carried off, and a map table had been thrown from a window and damaged.4 No source gathered here says who did it or whether anything was recovered.

The register's account says the tower stopped being an active fire lookout around 1990.1 Sometime after 2009, with the tower standing unmaintained, vandals set fire to its cab — itself a non-standard wooden replacement, not the tower's original. The blaze took out most of the upper landings and left the stairs above them damaged; scorch marks and burned debris are still visible on and around the structure.1 It was nominated to the National Historic Lookout Register by Jack Kelley and registered there on June 9, 2017, as US 1202, RI 8.1

No source consulted here says whether the site is currently open to the public, and with the fire damage to its stairs and landings, climbing it would not be safe regardless. Anyone visiting should expect a weathered steel skeleton rather than a complete, climbable tower.

  1. Escoheag Hill Fire Tower, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ri/escoheag-hill-fire-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Across northern R.I. are signs of the Civilian Conservation Corps, Valley Breeze, https://www.valleybreeze.com/news/across-northern-r-i-are-signs-of-the-civilian-conservation-corps/article_db662c6c-5872-5f48-abe9-e93c10e6c517.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Escoheag Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org), http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ri/escoheag-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  4. Escoheag Hill, Forest Lookouts (easternuslookouts.weebly.com), https://easternuslookouts.weebly.com/escoheag-hill.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

2017 photo
2017 photo (2017)Photo: Jack Kelley, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- eastern US (easternuslookouts.weebly.com) 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, staffing, 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.