Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho
Bobtail Peak Lookout
30-foot pole L-4 tower on Bobtail Peak in Coeur d'Alene National Forest, built 1934 and destroyed 1955; overgrown site with cement footings.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1955; the Forest Fire Lookout Association list marks the site gone
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 lists the site as drive-up. A 2022 post describes it as completely overgrown; no source describes the land's access rules
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower30-foot pole L-4 tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1934
- Height
- 30 ft (9.1 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Coeur d'Alene National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Shoshone County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 47.71241, −115.87905
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-bobtail-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 4.3 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
- 1934 Built30-foot pole tower with L-4 cab, 17 miles north of WallaceSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1934 StaffedOnly documented staff member: Charles Huelleman, cited by Idaho Fire Lookouts to a Wallace Press-Times item dated 06/07/1934Source: idahofirelookouts.com
- No record between 1934 and 1955
- 1955 DestroyedDestroyed 1955; no source 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.
Bobtail Peak Lookout was a 30-foot pole L-4 tower.1,2 It stood on Bobtail Peak in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, about 17 miles north of Wallace, Idaho, at an elevation of 4,128 feet.1,2
The tower went up in 1934.1,2,3 The only staff member the Idaho Fire Lookouts page names is Charles Huelleman, in 1934.2 The page cites a Wallace Press-Times item dated June 7, 1934.2
The tower was destroyed in 1955.1,2,3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list of Idaho lookouts now marks the site as gone.4
A 2022 post by Idaho Fire Lookouts describes the site as completely overgrown.2 Locating even the cement footings took the visitors a while, and they also found an old whiskey bottle that they judged to be from the tower's era.2 The post lists the site as drive-up.2 No source says whether the land is open to visitors today, and none describes anything else that remains.2,4
- Bobtail Peak Fire Lookout Tower, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.firelookout.com/id/bobtailpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Bobtail Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/bobtail-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Shoshone County, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho Lookouts (Alphabetical List), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
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
- 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
- Shoshone County (Forest Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com)) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Bobtail Peak on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Bobtail Peak Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.