Prospect Mountain rises above Lake George in Warren County, New York, and has long served as both a lookout and a destination for visitors. Tourism expanded in the late nineteenth century with an incline railway to the summit, where a house offered meals and dancing, but the line failed and closed in 1903. George Foster Peabody later donated the property to the state. The mountain then took on a fire observation role, first with a wooden tower and later a steel fire tower. A summit highway authorized in the 1950s and opened in 1969 made the top directly accessible, while parts of the former railway survive as a hiking trail.