NEW YORK LOOKOUTS
STERLING MOUNTAIN
Orange County
1922: "An observation site was selected on Sterling Mountain, between Sterling and Greenwood Lakes in Orange County. Early in the spring we sought the co-operation of towns and landowners who would be benefited by the operation of such a station. The response was most hearty, and resulted in raising the necessary funds to finance the purchase and erection of a standard observation tower and the building of the necessary telephone line. The erection of the tower is being completed as this report is written (January 1923) (Twelfth Annual Report of the Conservation Commission - 1922)
January 27, 1923: "Tangible results from the plan of cooperation outlined by the New Jersey Forest Fire Service and the New York State Conservation Commission are shown in the completion of a new lookout tower near Lakeville, in Warwick County, N.Y. This new station is one of the chain of alternating towers decided upon by the two commissions following a joint survey made last summer in working out a practical system of cooperative protection for the vast wooded area traversed by the New Jersey-New York boundary.
Since both states have great stretches of timber to protect in this region, and since forest fire does not respect state boundaries, a system of mutual cooperation was found to be imperative if adequate protection was to be provided without duplication of effort with its consequent needless expenditure of funds. The present plan of alternating towers connected by telephone was the result.
The new sixty-foot steel tower is set high on the crest of a mountain 1320 feet high and overlooks Greenwood Lake and a portion of the densely wooded sections of northern Passaic and Sussex counties in New Jersey. The new station will be put in service in the early spring and will cooperate with Bearfoot and Windbeam Lookout stations of the N.J. Forest Fire Service to cover the interstate area.
The erection of these lookout towers marks a big step forward in the effort that is being made to furnish the forests of the State Department of Conservation and Development. In act, the State Department of Conservation and Development has repeatedly shown that there can be no proper development of New Jersey's forests until the ravages of forest fires, which annually destroy thousands of acres are controlled." (The Chatham Press)
March 11, 1930: "Forest rangers and watchers in towers will begin Saturday their watch for forest fires in this region. Peter Sarneckey begins his seventh season of watching from the Sterling Mountain Tower near Tuxedo." (Middleton Times Herald)