Cannon Mountain Lookout

In 1951, a steel tower was built in association with the Cannon Mountain Tramway. The steel tower had been on display at the Eastern States Exposition in Springfield MA in 1951, and was removed to the Cannon site after the Exposition closed.

In 1958, a survey team described both a fire lookout and an observation platform on the summit. The following year, a benchmark was placed on the roof of the tower just to the side of a white light. They said the tower was about 35 feet tall constructed of wood and supported by four legs. They revisited several times over the next few decades but in 2010, they reported the station on the lookout was removed in the fall of 2007 and only the concrete blocks of the four tower legs remained.

In 1981, it was removed from service and was tucked under the guy wires of the new summit observation deck and radio-television tower.

In 2007, the tower was removed in the fall because it had deteriorated to the point where it could not be saved.

Cannon Mountain is famous and has one of the most elaborate viewing platforms of any summit near the Appalachian Trail. But to reach it, you will have to take a large but not unrealistic detour. Cannon Mountain is the site of the first passenger tramway in North America in 1938. Although the original tram is replaced, the current tram today still runs the 2.1 mile journey year round to the summit offering scenic views to tourists.

Long before the ski area, Cannon Mountain was known as having the site of the Old Man on the Mountain, a series of rock ledges that resembled a profile of a mans face. The formation became the state symbol of New Hampshire, used on highway signs, license plates, and the commemorative state quarter coin. In 2003, the ledges collapsed even though much effort was made to keep them bolted to the mountain.

The name Cannon comes from a pile of boulders on the crest that looks like a cannon pointed at the sky.