FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Bluff (Dominion)

St. Joe NF L-4 cab at the Bluff, listed for 1935, with a patrol tower two miles south; destroyed or gone by 1956; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1956 per two sources; the Shoshone County list marks it gone. No source describes what, if anything, 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?
Unknown
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in; the cab was destroyed in 1956

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.17809, −115.51969
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-bluff-dominion

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. 1935 BuiltListed as an L-4 cab in 1935 by firelookout.com, Idaho Fire Lookouts and Forest Lookouts; the year is read as the build year because no separate construction date is given.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1935 and 1956
  3. 1956 DestroyedDestroyed in 1956 per firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts; the Shoshone County list says 'gone' for 1956.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  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.

The Bluff, also listed as Bluff (Dominion), had an L-4 cab in 1935.1 It stood in the St. Joe National Forest, in Shoshone County, Idaho.1,2

A patrol tower stood two miles south, atop Dominion Point.1,3 Two sources say the cab was destroyed in 1956.1,3 A third lists the site as gone that year.4

The Dominion name also belongs to a lookout called Dominion Peak, which sat on the state line according to a 1933 newspaper item quoted on the Shoshone County list. That site is listed in another township, so it is a separate lookout.4

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as a hike-in.3 No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether the ground is open to the public.

  1. Bluff (Dominion) Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/bluffdominion.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Bluff (Dominion) Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/bluff-dominion-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (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: dates, 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. 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.