Fire lookout · Shoshone/ Sanders (MT) County, Idaho
Divide Peak
Also known as Divide Peak (Seventy-Two)
A 30-foot pole L-4 lookout on the Montana-Idaho line, built in 1931 and gone by 1950; sources disagree on how it ended.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1950. Idaho Fire Lookouts says destroyed, firelookout.com says only gone, and Forest Lookouts says removed. No source describes what remains.
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
- Trail
- Labelled drive-up on the Idaho Fire Lookouts page (dated July 4, 2022); no source says whether the road is open today
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Type unknown30-foot pole L-4 tower with a porch all the way around itThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1931
- Height
- 30 ft (9.1 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Coeur d'Alene/Kootenai National Forests
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Shoshone/ Sanders (MT) County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 47.97274, −116.03039
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-divide-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 its recorded height.
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
- 1931 Built30-foot pole L-4 tower on 72 Peak; reached by auto over the Jacks Gulch road south of HeronSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.
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.
Divide Peak, also called Seventy-Two, is a lookout site on the Montana-Idaho state line, in Shoshone County, Idaho.1,2 It lies about 14 miles southeast of Clark Fork.1 Forest Lookouts lists the same tower on the Montana side, under Sanders County, as 72 Peak.3
The lookout was reported complete on October 21, 1931, in the Sanders County Independent-Ledger.3,2 It stood on a 30-foot tower, with a porch all the way around it and heavy insulation against lightning.2 The paper said a car could reach it on the Jacks Gulch road, south of Heron.2
The tower was gone by 1950, but the sources give different accounts of how. Idaho Fire Lookouts says it was destroyed that year.2 Firelookout.com gives 1950 as the year it was gone, and Forest Lookouts lists it as removed, with no date.1,3
The sources also name different national forests. Firelookout.com lists the Coeur d'Alene and Kootenai National Forests, and Forest Lookouts names the Kootenai.1,3
Idaho Fire Lookouts first visited the wrong spot, then made a return trip and found the correct site.2 The page labels the site drive-up, but it is dated July 4, 2022, and no source says whether the road is open today.2 A 1971 photo caption on the page places a rock cairn at the site, and no source says whether any of it is still there.2 None of the pages we read describes what is on the summit today.
- Divide Peak (Seventy-Two) Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/dividepeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Divide Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/divide-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Divide Peak (72 Peak), Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/divide-peak-72-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) Gave us: name, county, 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: location, status, 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
- 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
- Divide Peak Lookout (Idaho Fire Lookouts) (opens another site)
- Divide Peak (72 Peak) (Forest Lookouts) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Divide Peak (Seventy-Two) on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.