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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Dry Point Lookout

A 1934 20-foot L-4 lookout in the Clearwater National Forest, abandoned in the 1940s and burned in the 1960s.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in the 1940s and recorded as gone; the Forest Service list gives a 1960s burn.

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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower20-foot L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.23598, −115.54960
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-dry-point

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 4.0 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 Built20-foot L-4 tower about half a mile south of the summitSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1940 AbandonedAbandoned in the 1940s; the exact year is not givenSources: firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
  3. No record between 1940 and 1960
  4. 1960 BurnedBurned in the 1960s; the exact year is not given (Forest Service list only)Source: fs.usda.gov
  5. 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.

Dry Point Lookout stood in the Clearwater National Forest, and it was built in 1934.1 The firelookout.com page calls it a 20-foot L-4 tower, located about half a mile south of the summit.1 The Forest Service list calls the structure an L-4 cabin.2 The firelookout.com page and the Forest Service list both place it about 21 miles east-northeast of Kooskia.1,2 Its elevation is listed as 4,000 feet.1,3 It was abandoned in the 1940s.1,2 The Forest Service list says it burned in the 1960s, while the two websites say only that it is gone.1,3,2 No source describes what remains at the site today.1,3,2 The Idaho Fire Lookouts site labels the lookout hike-in.3

  1. Dry Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/drypoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts (list compiled June 2016), U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Dry Point Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/dry-point-lookout/ (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: 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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.