FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Blackhawk Mountain

Pole L-4 lookout tower near Elk City, Idaho, built about 1930 and destroyed in 1960; sources disagree on its height. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1960 per firelookout.com, Forest Lookouts and a Forest Service list; no source describes the site since then

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?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists it as hike-in; no route is given in the sources read

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerpole L-4 towerThe 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
45.81372, −115.27511
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-blackhawk-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 4.2 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. 1930 BuiltBuilt about 1930 (approximate year in all sources)Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, fs.usda.gov
  2. No record between 1930 and 1960
  3. 1960 DestroyedTower and cab destroyed in 1960Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, fs.usda.gov
  4. 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.

Blackhawk Mountain is in Idaho County, about eight miles east of Elk City, on the Nez Perce National Forest.1 Firelookout.com gives its elevation as 6,091 feet.1

The tower, with an L-4 style cab, was built about 1930.1,2,3

The sources disagree on its height.1,4,2,3 Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts give 25 feet.1,4 The Forest Lookouts page gives about 28 feet.2 A Forest Service list of Nez Perce National Forest lookouts gives 40 feet.3 We cannot settle which figure is right from these pages.

Sources date the destruction of the tower and cab to 1960.1,2,3

Idaho Fire Lookouts describes the site as a hike-in that was destroyed.4 We found no source that describes what, if anything, remains at the site today. No source we read says whether the public may visit it.1,4,2,3

  1. Blackhawk Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/blackhawk.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Blackhawk Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/blackhawk-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Nez Perce National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259204 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Black Hawk Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/black-hawk-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Black Hawk Mountain Lookout
Black Hawk Mountain 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: 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, 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.