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Fire lookout · Lemhi County, Idaho

Anderson Mountain Lookout

Salmon NF lookout in Lemhi County, Idaho, built 1933 as a 50-ft Aermotor tower; listed gone by 1962, with only the footings left on the summit.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1962 per the Forest Fire Lookout Association and Idaho Fire Lookouts; the climbing guide says only the footings remain on the summit

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Climbing guide describes a road from Chief Joseph Pass (FS-081); no closure appears in the sources read; the guide says to check current road conditions with the Forest Service

Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
Climbing guide: 6.4 miles from the highway to the summit, a few hundred feet of gain, 4WD recommended

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-ft Aermotor LX-24 tower with 7x7 ft cab and a cabin; a 1982 history gives 70 ftThe design: Aermotor LX-24 / LX-25
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1933
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Salmon National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lemhi County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.61471, −113.90964
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-anderson-mountain

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 its recorded height.

Downloads about 3.8 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 BuiltApparently selected in winter 1932-33 and budgeted for that summer; 50-ft steel tower with cabin (one 1982 history says 70 ft)Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1933 and 1952
  3. 1952 StaffedRev. and Mrs. Joe Howard to have charge of the station for the fire season, per the Recorder Herald (article dated August 14, 1952) as quoted by the Forest Lookouts pageSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1962 RemovedListed as gone in 1962 by the Forest Fire Lookout Association and Idaho Fire Lookouts; a USGS station description of 1966 says the old lookout had been removedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 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.

Anderson Mountain Lookout stood in Lemhi County, Idaho, on a peak in the northern reaches of the Beaverhead Mountains, a short distance west of the Continental Divide.1,2 The site lies in the Salmon National Forest, about 30 miles north of Salmon.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association gives its elevation as 8,034 feet.2

A 1982 Salmon National Forest history by Bing Young, quoted by a climbing guide, says the peak apparently was picked for a lookout in the winter of 1932–33 and budgeted for that summer.1 The tower went up in 1933.2,3,4

The sources disagree about its height. Most describe a 50-foot Aermotor LX-24 tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab.2,3,4 The climbing guide, quoting Young's history, puts the tower at 70 feet and places a residence cabin beneath it.1 The guide adds that the lookout was used only in emergencies.1

In August 1952, the Recorder Herald reported that Rev. and Mrs. Joe Howard would have charge of the station that fire season.4

The Forest Fire Lookout Association and Idaho Fire Lookouts both list the tower as gone in 1962.2,3 A survey station description written by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1966 says the old lookout had been removed.4

According to the climbing guide, the summit now holds only the tower's footings.1 The summit sits close to the Continental Divide Trail.1 The guide gives a route of 6.4 miles from the highway, reached by FS-081 from Chief Joseph Pass.1 It recommends a 4WD and says visitors should check road conditions with the Forest Service.1 We found no closure notice in the sources we read.2,3,4,1

  1. Anderson Mountain, IDAHO: A Climbing Guide, https://www.idahoaclimbingguide.com/bookupdates/anderson-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Anderson Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.firelookout.com/id/andersonmtn318.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Anderson Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/anderson-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Anderson Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/anderson-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

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: 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: what it is built of, design, height, 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, height, status, agency, access, 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.