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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Cold Mountain Lookout

Payette NF Cold Mountain lookout (Idaho County): tower built 1935 with a cabin and privy; tower moved in 1994 to private land at Payette Lake near McCall, where its top 20 feet were restored.

Private land

No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. Tower is on private property at Payette Lake, owned by Richard Holm, Jr.; do not visit without permission. The original site lies in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness (HABS); no public access to it is described in the sources read.

The lookout that stood here was moved. Now at Payette Lake – Holm

Moved: The structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from. Tower removed from the original site in 1994; the top 20 feet were restored on private land at Payette Lake near McCall, Idaho. No source describes what remains at the original site today.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Private land. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Moved
Type
Cab on a tower72-foot steel Aermotor tower with a 7x7 metal cab; log cabin and privy at the original siteThe design: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1934
Height
72 ft (21.9 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Payette National Forest (original site); tower now privately owned, administered by Richard Holm, Jr. (NHLR)
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.24898, −114.94926
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-cold-mountain

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

The structure was moved. This view is from the position Firefinder shows for this record, at 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. 1934 BuiltPrivy built in 1934 at the original site (HABS). Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts give 1934 for the tower and cabin; HABS dates the tower to 1935Sources: tile.loc.gov, firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1935 BuiltTower built at the original site (HABS); NHLR also says built in 1935Sources: tile.loc.gov, nhlr.org
  3. 1936 BuiltLog cabin built; NHLR says 1936 and HABS says 1936-37Sources: tile.loc.gov, nhlr.org
  4. 1937 StaffedNHLR says Norman Borlaug staffed the tower the year after the cabin was builtSource: nhlr.org
  5. 1939 StaffedKnown lookout personnel: Leonard Rowland (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.com
  6. No record between 1939 and 1994
  7. 1994 MovedTower disassembled and removed from the original site under a contract beginning August 1, 1994 (HABS); moved to private property near McCall (Idaho Fire Lookouts)Sources: tile.loc.gov, firelookout.com, nhlr.org
  8. 1996 Condition assessmentHABS documentation dated April 1996 found the privy and log cabin still standing at the original siteSource: tile.loc.gov
  9. 2000 BurnedLog cabin burned in a wildfire, per NHLRSource: nhlr.org
  10. 2007 RestoredA private party restored the top 20 feet of the tower near the shore of Payette Lake (NHLR); Forest Lookouts gives the same yearSources: nhlr.org, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  11. 2008 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered January 2, 2008 as US 714, ID 47; nominated by Richard Holm, Jr. and Lawrence KingsburySource: nhlr.org
  12. Date unknown MovedThe lookout was moved to Payette Lake – Holm.Source: FFLA
  13. TodayMovedThe structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from.

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 first Cold Mountain lookout stood in the Krassel District of the Payette National Forest, about 2.5 miles south of Cold Meadows Guard Station.1 Firelookout.com puts the site at 8,084 feet.2

The Historic American Buildings Survey report describes three structures there: a privy built in 1934, the tower built in 1935, and a log cabin built in 1936 and 1937.1 Pack animals carried the prefabricated tower in.1 The tower was a 72-foot steel Aermotor with a metal cab measuring 7 by 7 feet.2,3

Sources disagree about the tower's year. Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts both give 1934, while HABS and the register say 1935.2,4,1,3 HABS dates the privy to 1934 and the tower to 1935, and this story follows HABS.1

The register says Norman Borlaug, who later won a Nobel Prize, staffed the tower the year after the cabin went up, which places him there in 1937.3 Firelookout.com lists Leonard Rowland as a lookout in 1939.2

The tower came down in 1994.1,2,3 HABS says it was taken off the site under a contract that began August 1, 1994.1 HABS documented the site in April 1996 and found the privy and log cabin still standing.1 The register says a wildfire burned the cabin in 2000.3

The tower was moved to private property near McCall, Idaho, close to the shore of Payette Lake.4,3 A private party restored its top 20 feet in 2007.3,5 The register lists Richard Holm, Jr. as owner and says the lookout was registered on January 2, 2008.3

Apart from the 2000 fire, no source we read describes the original site after the 1996 survey. HABS places it inside the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.1 We found nothing that says what, if anything, is left there now. Because the tower is on private land, please do not visit or climb it without the owner's permission.

  1. Cold Mountain Fire Lookout Station, HABS No. ID-115, Library of Congress, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/pnp/habshaer/id/id0200/id0270/data/id0270data.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Cold Mountain Lookout, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/coldmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Cold Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/cold-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Cold Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/cold-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Cold Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/cold-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Cold Mountain Lookout
Cold Mountain LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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: 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: what it is built of, 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, status, agency, access, 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.