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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Cathedral Peak Lookout

A 1931 pole tower with an L-4 cab on Coeur d'Alene National Forest land, destroyed in 1955; the Idaho site authors found no remains, only a clearing.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1955; the Idaho site found no remains on the ridge, only a clearing

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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, plus two patrol pointsThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.95210, −116.10983 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-cathedral-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.8 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. 1931 Built30-foot pole L-4 tower atop the easternmost point, with patrol points 1/4 mile west and 1.5 miles southwestSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1931 and 1955
  3. 1955 DestroyedDestroyed; the sources do not name a causeSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.org
  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.

Cathedral Peak's lookout went up in 1931 on the easternmost point of the peak, in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, Shoshone County, Idaho.1,2

It was a 30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, and the site also had two patrol points, a quarter mile west and about a mile and a half southwest.1,2,3

The two sites give different elevations, 4,090 feet and 4,291 feet.1,2

The tower was destroyed in 1955.1,2,3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list also marks it as gone.4

The Idaho page says its authors combed the ridge and found no trace of the towers.2 Their closest find was an open patch they judged suitable for a tower.2

The Idaho page is the only source that describes the ridge itself, and it lists the site as a hike-in on Coeur d'Alene National Forest land.2 No source says whether it is open to visitors.

  1. Cathedral Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/cathedralpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Cathedral Peak Lookout – Idaho Fire Lookouts, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/cathedral-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Shoshone County – Forest Lookouts, idaholookouts.weebly.com, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts – Forest Fire Lookout Association, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Cathedral Peak Lookout
Cathedral Peak LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the location by 2.5 km (1.6 mi).

    • FFLA: 47.95210, −116.10983
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 47.94409, −116.14185

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

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. 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.