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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Dominion Mountain Lookout

Also known as Dominion Peak, Dominion Mtn. (Peak)

Idaho-Montana line lookout: established 1933, L-4 cab built 1934, destroyed 1962; cab footings with carved names were still there at a 2025 visit.

Ruins: Only footings or remains are left. Destroyed in 1962; cement footings of the cab were still on site at a 2025 visit.

Visit & stay

Ruins: footings or remains only. There is no structure 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

Facts

Status
Ruins
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab, built 1934The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.36733, −115.57757
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-dominion-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 4.4 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. 1933 First staffedLookout established; Charles Nelson named first lookout and patrolmanSources: idahofirelookouts.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 BuiltL-4 cab builtSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  3. 1938 StaffedN.B. Benson listed; the date is uncertainSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1944 StaffedAnna Bogdan and another woman served that seasonSources: idahofirelookouts.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1944 and 1962
  6. 1962 DestroyedDestroyedSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  7. TodayRuinsOnly footings or remains are 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.

Dominion Mountain, also called Dominion Peak, stands on the Idaho-Montana state line about 8 miles southeast of Lookout Pass, at 6,032 feet.1,2 A lookout was set up there in 1933.3 A Sanders County newspaper item from July 26, 1933, quoted on a Montana lookout list, placed Charles Nelson on the peak as lookout and patrolman, and said he would use a road built in 1932 along the divide for his patrol work.2 An L-4 cab was built there in 1934.3,1

The Idaho Fire Lookouts team says Charles Nelson is the confirmed lookout for 1933.3 Its 1938 entry names N.B. Benson, but the date is uncertain, because the footing inscription is hard to read and the team said it needed help deciphering it.3 A September 1944 newspaper item, quoted on the Montana list, says Anna Bogdan and another woman worked the lookout that summer.2

Sources date the destruction to 1962.3,1 In a September 2025 post, the Idaho team described cement footings for the cab, with names carved into three of them.3 A separate Idaho Fire Lookouts account of a visit to the site calls the ruins a fallen tower.4 The footings are linked to the L-4 cab, while that account describes a fallen tower, so the structure type is unclear.3,4 Beyond the footings and the fallen tower, no source describes what remains.3,4

Sources disagree on the forest. Four sources put the site in the St. Joe National Forest,3,1,5,4 and the Montana list gives the Kootenai National Forest.2 The Idaho post calls the site a drive-up location.3 No source says whether the public may go there.3

  1. Dominion Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/dominionmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Dominion Peak, Forest Lookouts (Ron Kemnow), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/dominion-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Dominion Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/dominion-mtn-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookout Staffing Project, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/lookout-adventures/idaho-lookout-staffing-project/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Shoshone County, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

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

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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. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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
  7. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, staffing, 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

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