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Fire lookout · Kootenai County, Idaho

Cedar Mountain

Coeur d'Alene NF lookout in Kootenai County: crow's nest c.1929, 20-foot pole tower with L-4 cab c.1934, destroyed 1959; no source describes remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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; no source says whether it is open to visitors

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerCrow's nest c.1929; 20-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab c.1934The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1929
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Kootenai County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.88222, −116.63810
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-cedar-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 its recorded height.

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. 1929 BuiltCrow's nest on the summit, dated c.1929 by the Forest Lookouts page, which cites KresekSources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  2. 1934 Built20-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, dated c.1934; the sources do not say whether it replaced the crow's nestSources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1950
  4. 1950 EventDecember 1950 Post-Register item: radio equipment due for the state forestry department, including a mobile relay for a location on Cedar MountainSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1959 DestroyedDestroyed in 1959Sources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.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.

Cedar Mountain is a summit in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, in Kootenai County, Idaho, at 4,764 feet.1,2,3

A crow's nest is dated to about 1929, and a 20-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab to about 1934.1,2,3

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists one name from the 1940s, Beb Lemons, cited to a letter to Ray.2

A December 1950 item from the Post-Register, reprinted on the Forest Lookouts page, reported that radio gear for the state forestry department was due soon. It included a mobile relay unit for a site on Cedar Mountain.1

The tower was destroyed in 1959. Idaho Fire Lookouts, firelookout.com and the Forest Lookouts page all record that year.1,2,3 The Forest Lookouts page also carries a separate "Removed" line, with no date attached.1

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in.2 None of the sources we read describes what remains at the summit now, or says whether the site is open to visitors.1,2,3

  1. Cedar Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Idaho), Weebly, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/cedar-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Cedar Mountain, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/cedar-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Cedar Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/cedarmtn243.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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, height, 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, height, 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.