Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho
Beaver Peak
Shoshone County, ID Coeur d'Alene NF lookout: 50-ft L-4 cabin tower c.1928, trailer by 1967, gone by 1969. No source describes the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1969; a pop-up cupola trailer is recorded as the lookout in 1967
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
- Trail
- Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site drive-up; no source says whether it is open to visitors today
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower50-foot pole tower with 6-by-6-foot cab and L-4 cabin living quarters (c.1928)The design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1928
- Height
- 50 ft (15.2 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Coeur d'Alene National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Shoshone County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 47.98720, −116.17042
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-beaver-peak
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 3.9 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
- 1928 Built50-foot pole tower with 6-by-6 cab and L-4 cabin living quarters, dated c.1928Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1941 StaffedBob Knox pictured in the photographs and recorded as lookout in 1941Source: firelookout.com
- 1946 StaffedLeonard Dobler, named in the Kellogg Evening News item dated 07/01/1946Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- No record between 1946 and 1967
- 1967 AlteredLookout described as a pop-up cupola trailer, a portable trailer lookoutSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1967 StaffedPaul Tusch recorded for 1967Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- 1969 AbandonedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
- 1969 EventListed as gone; none of the sources gives a causeSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Beaver Peak is in Shoshone County, Idaho, on the Coeur d'Alene National Forest.1 It lies about 11 miles south of Clark Fork, at an elevation of 5,384 feet.1,2
The lookout was a 50-foot pole tower with a 6-by-6-foot cab and L-4 cabin living quarters, put up around 1928.1,2,3
Several people are named as lookouts.1,2 Bob Knox is pictured in the page's black-and-white photographs and is recorded as lookout in 1941.1 Leonard Dobler appears in a 1946 Kellogg Evening News item.1,2 Paul Tusch is recorded for 1967.1,2
By 1967 the lookout was a pop-up cupola trailer, which the Forest Lookouts page calls a portable trailer lookout.1,2,3
The site was gone by 1969.1,2,3 Firelookout.com's header gives the span as 1928 to 1967, but its text and Idaho Fire Lookouts both put the end at 1969.1,2
None of the three sources describes what remains of the site today.1,2,3 A survey description written by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1938 places a station mark, cemented in rock and set in earth, under the center of the lookout house, but no source says whether that mark survives.3 Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site drive-up, but no source says whether it is open to visitors now.2
- Beaver Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/beaverpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Beaver Peak, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/beaver-peak/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Beaver Peak - Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/beaver-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: 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
- 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
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Beaver Peak on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Beaver Peak on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Beaver Peak on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.