FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Tuolumne County, California

North Mountain Lookout

Stanislaus NF lookout in Tuolumne County: 1963 steel K-brace replacement of a wooden lookout, fire-season service ended 1971, solar panels added 1987; NHLR-registered 2017.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Not staffed (as of 1971)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower54-foot steel K-brace tower with a 13 by 13 foot live-in cab; Forest Service standard designs (tower L-1600 series, cab CL-30) and a garage built in 1963Cab: CL-100; tower: L-1600 steel tower
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1940
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,754 ft (1,754 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Tuolumne County, California
Coordinates
37.90270, −119.89796
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ca-north-mountain

View from the cab

What you see from the cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.

Downloads about 3.5 MB of terrain data the first time.

Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1940 Builtearlier wooden lookout; history page says 1940, federal survey says about 30 feet tall, a 1940 newspaper said a planned 45-foot tower with glass cabSources: tile.loc.gov, californialookouts.weebly.com, historic-structures.com
  2. No record between 1940 and 1963
  3. 1963 BuiltRegister and survey: current 54-foot steel K-brace tower and 13 by 13 foot cab, with a garageSources: nhlr.org, tile.loc.gov, historic-structures.com
  4. 1963 Replaced by a new structurecurrent tower and garage replaced the earlier wooden lookoutSources: tile.loc.gov, historic-structures.com
  5. 1971 Last staffedcontinuous fire season service until 1971; Juanita Larson the lookout for the last four yearsSources: tile.loc.gov, historic-structures.com
  6. No record between 1971 and 1987
  7. 1987 Alteredsolar panels added to the cab roof in fall 1987 to power part of the Forest radio repeater systemSource: historic-structures.com
  8. No record between 1987 and 2017
  9. 2017 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered April 24, 2017 as US 1189, CA 120Source: nhlr.org
  10. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

Old maps of this spot

USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

North Mountain is a 5,754-foot peak in Tuolumne County, on the Stanislaus National Forest, and its lookout overlooks Hetch Hetchy Valley and the Yosemite high country.1

Sources disagree about the wooden lookout that stood there first.2,3,4 The federal survey calls it a 30-foot windmill-type tower.2 A January 1940 newspaper item had announced plans for a 45-foot tower topped by a glass room.3 One history page dates the wooden tower to 1940.4

The Forest Service replaced it in 1963 with the current 54-foot K-brace steel tower and a 13-by-13-foot live-in cab.1,2 The tower and cab followed Forest Service standard designs, and the $45,795 cost was shared with the National Park Service.2,4

The lookout kept a fire-season watch until 1971, and Juanita Larson was on duty during its last four years.2 Herschel Nieman was the lookout during the changeover to the new tower.4

When the station closed, the stove, refrigerator, heater and Osborne fire finder came out of the cab, while the cabinets and furnishings stayed.2 In fall 1987 solar panels went on the cab roof to power part of the Forest's radio repeater system, and the history page says there were no other modifications.4

The Register records a registration on April 24, 2017 as US 1189, CA 120.1 The federal survey calls the lookout eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.2 I found no current access rule, visit report or rental listing in these pages, and the history page itself asks readers for an update on its current status, so check with the Stanislaus National Forest before planning a trip.1,4

  1. North Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ca/north-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. North Mountain Lookout, Historic American Buildings Survey CA-2271, Library of Congress, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/pnp/habshaer/ca/ca1500/ca1503/data/ca1503data.pdf (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. North Mountain, Forest Lookouts (californialookouts.weebly.com), https://californialookouts.weebly.com/north-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. North Mountain Lookout - Fire Watchtower, Groveland California, Historic Structures, https://www.historic-structures.com/ca/groveland/north_moutain_watchtower.php (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of North Mountain Lookout
Photo: Bill Luedeke/HAER, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of North Mountain Lookout
Photo: Library of Congress, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
1955
1955 (1955)Photo: Stanislaus National Forest Archive, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, staffing, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story

More about this lookout elsewhere

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.