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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Avery Hill Lookout

Shoshone County, Idaho pole lookout about 2 miles northwest of Avery, built about 1939 and destroyed in 1956; a 1925 lookout report may predate it.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1956; no source describes what 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?
Yes, you can drive up

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1939
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.26878, −115.82670
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-avery-hill

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. 1925 FireForest lookout at Avery reported a lightning-caused fire near the Bullion mine, per a Morning Oregonian report quoted by Forest LookoutsSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1939 BuiltAbout 1939 30-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1939 and 1956
  4. 1956 DestroyedDestroyed in 1956Sources: firelookout.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.

Avery Hill sits about 2 miles northwest of Avery in Shoshone County, at 4,421 feet, in the St. Joe National Forest.1

A tower with a 30-foot pole and an L-4 cab went up around 1939.1,2 A patrol lookout also stood on Trego Point, 1.5 miles to the northwest.1

An earlier mention may point to an older lookout. A July 25, 1925 newspaper report, quoted by the Forest Lookouts site, says the forest lookout at Avery reported a lightning-caused fire near the Bullion mine.2 The same report adds that the storm later disrupted wire communication with the district.2 Whether that lookout was the same structure as the later tower is not clear from these listings.

The tower was destroyed in 1956.1,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site as drive-up.3 None of the sources we read describes what remains on the site today, or whether visitors may go there.

  1. Avery Hill Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/averyhill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Avery Hill, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/avery-hill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Avery Hill Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/avery-hill-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Avery Hill Lookout
Avery Hill LookoutPhoto: 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: 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, 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.