FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Valley County, Idaho

Acorn Butte

Lookout cab built as a ground house on Acorn Butte in 1933; last staffed 1975 and destroyed in a forest fire in August 2000.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in a forest fire in 2000; no source describes remains

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

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

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in; no source describes access today

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cab14 x 14 L-4 cab built as a lookout ground houseThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Payette National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Valley County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.17925, −115.07484
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-acorn-butte

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its 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.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 4.0 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. 1933 Built14 x 14 lookout ground house, L-4 cab, erected on Acorn ButteSources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1933 and 1965
  3. 1965 StaffedKnown staff: Ronald Mitchell (Idaho Press, 1966 item)Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1975 Last staffedLast season staffedSources: idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1975 and 2000
  6. 2000 BurnedLost in a forest fire, August 2000Sources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  7. 2000 DestroyedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
  8. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Acorn Butte, in Valley County, Idaho, within the Payette National Forest, got its lookout in 1933, when a 14 x 14 L-4 cab went up as a lookout ground house.1,2,3 The site is listed at an elevation of 7,760 feet.1,2

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists Ronald Mitchell as a staffer in 1965, citing a 1966 Idaho Press item.2 The cab was last staffed in 1975.2,3 Firelookout.com says it was last used for emergencies in the 1970s.1

A forest fire destroyed the cab in August 2000, according to the Forest Lookouts list.3 Idaho Fire Lookouts and firelookout.com both date the loss to 2000.2,1

No source describes what remains on the butte now, or whether the site is open to visitors. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in.2

  1. Acorn Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/acornbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Acorn Butte, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/acorn-butte/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Acorn Butte, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/acorn-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Acorn Butte
Acorn ButtePhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  3. Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) Gave us: dates, photos, links idahofirelookouts.com · No licence stated; facts only (coordinates, status/built/destroyed year parsed from each entry's short excerpt). Thumbnail photos mirrored with credit per the project's photo policy. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: agency, ownership, 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, visiting details, 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.