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The Lyon Mountain Mountain Fire Observation Station is located 7 miles west of Dannemora in Clinton County, New York. It was established in April 1910 without a fire tower, as the summit of Lyon Mountain was bare at that time. In 1917 the New York State Conservation Commission erected a 35 foot steel Aermotor LS40 fire lookout tower that still stands atop the mountain.
The tower was used until the end of the 1988 season and was officially closed in early 1989 when the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation determined that airplanes were more effective for spotting fires than fire towers.
The tower and surrounding land belonged to timber company Domtar until January, 2005, when Domtar sold 20,000 acres of its holdings around Lyon Mountain to The Nature Conservancy; the land has since been sold to New York State.