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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Beargrass Lookout

Nez Perce National Forest lookout with an L-4 cab, dated c.1930 and abandoned in 1950. No source describes what remains at the site.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1950; 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.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go. Idaho Fire Lookouts carries a Drive Up tag; no source we read states current access.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Nez Perce National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.00747, −115.45073
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-beargrass

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 4.1 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. 1922 StaffedStaff named for 1922 (C.A. Talcott, Jess Upham); predates the 1930 L-4 towerSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1930 BuiltL-4 tower, dated 1930 (about 1930 on one site)Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1930 and 1950
  4. 1950 AbandonedAbandoned in 1950Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, 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.

Beargrass Lookout stood in the Nez Perce National Forest, at an elevation of 5,910 feet.1,2

All three site pages give 1930, or about 1930, for an L-4 tower.1,2,3 According to a Forest Service guide to lookout styles, the L-4, also called an Aladdin, measured 14 by 14 feet and was supplied pre-cut.4

The Idaho Fire Lookouts page lists staff for 1922, including C.A. Talcott and Jess Upham, and cites a book titled Lochsa by Louis F. Harting.1 That date is eight years before the 1930 tower.1 The sources we read do not say what stood on the summit in 1922, and they do not name anyone who staffed the L-4 tower.

The tower was abandoned in 1950, and the three site pages agree on that year.1,2,3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list marks the tower as gone.5

The Idaho Fire Lookouts page carries a "Drive Up" tag. No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site, or whether the public can reach it now.1

  1. Beargrass Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/beargrass-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Beargrass Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/beargrass.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Beargrass - Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/beargrass.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Lookout Styles, Nez Perce National Forest, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259212 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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, 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, access, 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.