Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: Howard C. Ohlhous
Taken: July 6, 2011
Caption: Whiteface Mountain Observation Tower
Additional Description: The state historic marker describing the Whiteface tower was put up in 1935 to commemorate fifty years of the Forest Preserve and of conservation in New York State. Despite what the sign says, this steel tower was actually built in 1919. It replaced a simple observation position that had been established at Whiteface in 1909 in response to the forest fires of 1903 and 1908, when 464,189 and 346,953 acres, respectively, were burned in the Adirondacks.
During World War I, steel towers began to replace the original log structures. By the 1950s there were over a hundred steel towers on mountains throughout the state, most with telephone lines and cabins for fire observers.
In 1932, the Conservation Department purchased an airplane "to increase the efficiency of fire detection." Eventually, towers and human observers were replace. By the mid-1970s about twenty people were employed as observers, and towers located in Wilderness Areas of the Forest Preserve were being removed. By 1990 only four towers were manned, but public interest in preserving fire towers as historic structures was growing.
This sign is on display at the base of the firetower at the Adirondack Museum.
Submitted: July 17, 2011, by Howard C. Ohlhous of Duanesburg, New York.
Database Locator Identification Number: p162322
File Size: 1.559 Megabytes

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