In the early twentieth century, after approximately one million acres in the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves were destroyed by fire, New York State created a forest patrol service and funded fire observation stations. The first station was built on Hunter Mountain in the Catskills in 1909, and by 1917 steel towers had replaced wooden ones. For the next 50 years, observers and rangers watched the forests for smoke, but in the 1970s many towers were decommissioned as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation adopted aerial surveillance, and by 1990 the fire tower era had ended. The Aermotor Company, a windmill builder founded in 1892, set the standard for steel towers, and most forest observation towers, including Summit's, were its products. On South Mountain, the 60-foot Summit Fire Tower was constructed in the fall of 1926 and first manned the following spring; Allegany State Park maintained it until the fall of 1970, when aerial surveillance flights began replacing fire towers for detection. Summit was one of three towers built in Allegany State Park, alongside towers erected on Mt. Tuscarora and in the Rice Brook area in 1928. The Summit tower was abandoned until 1999, when concerned citizens formed the Allegany State Park Fire Tower Restoration Committee to restore the tower, maintain it and its surroundings, develop educational programming on the tower and forest, encourage public support, and provide hikers and tourists with views of the surrounding parkland. Among those associated with the tower were Harry Gray, observer from 1935 to 1942; his wife, Anastasia Gray, who succeeded him and served from 1843 to 1952; Fran Bosquest, observer from 1953 to 1969, who was admired by visitors; and Fritz Opferbeck, 1901 to 1971, the last observer to man the Summit Fire Tower.