2005
Gretna Longware of Elizabethtown is the leader of a battle
to preserve Adirondack cultural heritage against the State’s
decades long campaign of attrition. The 80-year-old Hurricane
Mountain Fire Tower is the symbol around which local Adirondack
people are rallying to preserve their cultural heritage. Although
retired from use in the early 1970’s, the tower is still
standing and visible from Route 9N between Elizabethtown and Keene.
Last year, however, local people discovered a State plan to dismantle
the structure and ship it out of the area for display at a fairground.
The citizens organized a group called Friends of Hurricane Mountain
Fire Tower to protect it in its historic location. One of the
citizens was Gretna Longware, whose husband Melvin’s uncle
and great uncle served for decades as forest rangers at the tower
lookout.
Mrs. Longware is fighting procedural hurdles dealing with the
Adirondack Park Agency, an all-powerful governor-appointed zoning
agency, to revise the state land use plan, a sort of ossified
bible of state land restrictions that should have been revised
in response to countless conflicts with local people years ago.
In an area of very sparse population, she gathered 1,750 signatures
in favor of preserving the fire tower, and gathered numerous endorsements
from town, village and county boards as well as state legislators
for her position. The future of Hurricane Mountain Fire Tower
has been hanging for over a decade, but, because of Gretna Longware
and the many people that she and others have brought to the fray
to save the landmark, the tower still stands atop Hurricane Mountain.
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