Fire lookout · Kootenai County, Idaho
Colt Mountain
A 1934 20-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab on the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, gone by 1960; no account of the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The tower was gone by 1960; no source describes what, if anything, remains on the site.
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
- Trail
- Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in. The tower is gone.
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 20-foot pole towerThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1934
- Height
- 20 ft (6.1 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Coeur d'Alene National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Kootenai County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 47.82520, −116.48163
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-colt-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 4.3 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 Built20-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1934 and 1960
- 1960 RemovedGone by 1960. Idaho Fire Lookouts files the site as destroyed or removed.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.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.
The Colt Mountain lookout was a 20-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, dated to 1934.1,2,3 It stood on the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, about 16 miles northeast of Coeur d'Alene, at an elevation of 4,206 feet.1,2 Firelookout.com places the site in Kootenai County.1 The Forest Lookouts page also gives the code 52N-1W-28 for the site.3
Firelookout.com marks the tower as gone in 1960.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts gives the same loss year and labels the site as destroyed or removed.2
Photos of the tower on firelookout.com and on the Idaho Fire Lookouts page are credited to the Forest Service.1,2 The Idaho Fire Lookouts page files the site as hike-in, but no source we checked describes a route or what, if anything, remains on the mountain today.2
- Colt Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/coltmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Colt Mountain, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/colt-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Colt Mountain - Forest Lookouts, idaholookouts.weebly.com, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/colt-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
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
- 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: 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) 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
- 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
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Colt Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Colt Mountain on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Colt Mountain on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.