Alma Hill, a two thousand five hundred forty-three-foot mountain in New York’s Southern Tier southwest of Wellsville in Allegany County, is recognized as the highest hill in western New York and the state’s highest point outside the Adirondacks and Catskills. In 1950, the Conservation Department built an eighty-foot Aermotor LS40 steel fire lookout tower on its summit with a 1941-model observer cabin. Unlike the tighter tower systems of the Adirondacks and Catskills, this site helped protect broad areas of state forest. Its fire lookout role ended after the 1971 season, and the tower was sold in 1973. It remains notable as one of the few surviving New York towers with its original manufacturer’s tag.