RED HOUSE — The Allegany State Park Historical Society and The Friends of Allegany State Park will host walks on the weekends for park visitors to discover Stone Tower.
These free events are open to the public and weather dependent. The program will continue every weekend until Oct. 13.
The first walk of the month will be Sunday, with other September dates being the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th.
Walkers can meet anytime from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Sundays at the APS Stone Tower (Program Site 17).
In June of 1933, Company 249 of the Civilian Conservation Corps (part of FDR’s New Deal) arrived at Allegany State Park whose task was to construct a stone observation tower on the summit of a hill. The men commenced the Stone Tower in October 1933. Their campsite of World War I surplus tents was located just below where the tower now stands.
Stone Tower includes a winding staircase leading up to the top deck, which consisted of wooden guardrails. The stone used to build the tower was all collected and cut in Allegany State Park. The octagonal shape tower stands at an elevation of 2,250 feet and overlooks Salamanca to the North and Red House Lake to the South. A carving of an arrow pointing north was etched in the center of its upper deck.
The Stone Tower was completed in the spring of 1934. The tower has never been used for anything other than recreational observational tower by park visitors.
For more information on this event, visit www.facebook.com/Allegany.
