FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Capitol Hill

Coeur d'Alene National Forest lookout: a 40-foot pole L-4 tower built in 1936 and destroyed in 1960; a 2024 visit found only the footings and two benchmarks.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1960. A 2024 visit found only the footings and two benchmarks.

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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1936
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.55929, −115.97153
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-capitol-hill

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 3.7 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 EventA camp was located on the siteSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1936 Built40-foot pole L-4 towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1937 StaffedJay Murray named on the Idaho Fire Lookouts pageSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1946 StaffedMr. and Mrs. Clyde Peacock namedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 1960 DestroyedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  6. 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.

Capitol Hill sits in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, six miles north-northwest of Wallace in Shoshone County, Idaho, at an elevation of 5,318 feet.1 A camp was on the site in 1930, and a 40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab went up in 1936.1,2

The Idaho Fire Lookouts page names Jay Murray for 1937 and Mr. and Mrs. Clyde Peacock for 1946.2 Firelookout.com names only the Peacocks, for 1946.1

The tower was destroyed in 1960.1,2

A post on the Idaho Fire Lookouts site, dated July 3, 2024, describes a visit that found the tower's footings and two benchmarks. The writers say nothing else seems to be left, and that the view has gone now that the trees around the site have grown up.2 The writers say the drive up is easy, and that they saw other people along the way.2

No source describes the site since that visit.

  1. Capitol Hill Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/capitolhill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Capitol Hill Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/capitol-hill-lookout/ (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. 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.