T Lake Mountain in New York's Adirondacks was the site of a former fire observation station that represented the period when mountaintop towers were used to detect forest fires across the region. A 50-foot Aermotor LL25 tower was erected on the summit in 1916, first reached by an exterior ladder, then improved with wooden steps and later an internal staircase. The station remained active through the 1970 fire lookout season before aerial detection and wilderness management policies made it obsolete. Efforts to preserve it failed, and in 1977 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers destroyed the tower in an explosives test and removed the wreckage by helicopter.