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Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho

Bee Top Mountain

Bonner County, Idaho lookout on the Kaniksu National Forest: L-4 cab on a stone base about 1938, staffed in 1937 per a newspaper item, destroyed 1966. Nothing described on site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1966; 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.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts classes the site as a hike-in

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab on a stone base or foundationThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1938
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Bonner County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.23485, −116.14693
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-bee-top-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 4.5 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. 1937 StaffedNorthern Idaho News item of August 27, 1937 (quoted by Forest Lookouts) says Paul Schravendyk was down from the Bee Top lookout station on a three-day leaveSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1938 BuiltL-4 cab on a stone base or foundation; dated c.1938 (Kresek) and 1938 by firelookout.com and Idaho Fire LookoutsSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1938 and 1966
  4. 1966 DestroyedDestroyedSources: 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.

Bee Top Mountain Lookout stood on Bee Top Mountain in Bonner County, Idaho, inside the Kaniksu National Forest.1,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts gives the mountain's elevation as 6,212 feet.2

Sources agree that an L-4 cab went up on a stone base or foundation around 1938.1,2,3 The date is not fully settled, though. A Northern Idaho News item from August 27, 1937, quoted by Forest Lookouts, already refers to the Bee Top lookout station.3 That suggests the station was in use before the cab's date of about 1938.3

The same 1937 item says Paul Schravendyk had come down from the station for a three-day leave.3

The lookout was destroyed in 1966.1,2,3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list records the Bonner County site as a ground lookout that is gone.4

No source describes what remains at the site.1,2,3 Idaho Fire Lookouts classes the site as a hike-in.2

  1. Bee Top Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://firelookout.com/id/beetopmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Bee Top Mountain, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/north-idaho-panhandle-region/bee-top-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Bee Top Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/bee-top-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Bee Top Mountain
Bee Top MountainPhoto: 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: what it is built of, 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, 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.