FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Archer Point

Nez Perce NF 20-foot pole L-4 lookout, built about 1933 (1934 by one history) and destroyed in 1957; no source describes what remains at the site.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1957; no source describes what remains at the site

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. On national forest land; the Idaho Fire Lookouts site files it as a hike-in site

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Filed as hike-in by idahofirelookouts.com

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower20-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Nez Perce National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.92989, −114.86476
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-archer-point

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 4.1 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 BuiltForest Service list gives 1933 +/-; firelookout.com and the Idaho site also give 1933; the Forest Lookouts site gives 1934Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1933 and 1956
  3. 1956 EventAdministration of the site moved from Bitterroot National Forest to Nez Perce National ForestSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1957 DestroyedDestroyed in 1957Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, fs.usda.gov
  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.

Archer Point Lookout was a 20-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, about 14 miles south of Moose Creek Ranger Station, at 5,061 feet.1 A Forest Service list dates it to about 1933.2 The Forest Lookouts site gives 1934.3

The site was administered by the Bitterroot National Forest until 1956.3 In that year administration moved to the Nez Perce National Forest, according to the Forest Lookouts site.3 Firelookout.com and the Forest Service's Nez Perce list both place the site in Nez Perce.1,4

The lookout was destroyed in 1957.1,3,2,4

The Idaho Fire Lookouts site files the site as hike-in and destroyed.5 The Forest Service includes Archer Point in its list of Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness lookouts.2 No source we found describes what, if anything, remains at the site today.

  1. Archer Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/archerpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Lookouts, USDA Forest Service (compiled by Cindy L. Schacher, 2014), https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259187 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Archer Point, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/archer-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Nez Perce National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259204 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Archer Point, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/archer-point/ (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: 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.