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Fire lookout · Kootenai County, Idaho

Eagle Peak Lookout

Kootenai County lookout at 5,199 ft: a 1934 pole tower, replaced in 1963 by a 53-foot tower that was torn down about 1998. No source describes the summit today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Torn down about 1998; 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?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower53-foot treated timber tower with R-6 flat cab (1963); the first lookout was a 50-foot pole tower with L-4 cab (1934)The designs: L-4, R-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
53 ft (16.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Idaho Department of Lands (operation from 1966); land also listed as Coeur d'Alene National Forest and Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation
Land
Unknown
Location
Kootenai County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.44714, −116.49735
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-eagle-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 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 BuiltFirst tower: 50-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1944 First staffedEarliest named lookout in these sources: Grace ShellmanSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. No record between 1944 and 1963
  4. 1963 Replaced by a new structure53-foot treated timber tower with R-6 flat cab replaced the 1934 towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1966 EventOperation transferred to the Idaho Department of LandsSource: firelookout.com
  6. 1971 StaffedMark Grorud staffed the lookout and wrote a memory of the summerSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  7. 1975 Last staffedLast named lookout on the firelookout.com list: Mike DunnSource: firelookout.com
  8. 1980 AbandonedForest Lookouts says abandoned in the 1980sSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  9. No record between 1980 and 1998
  10. 1998 DestroyedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
  11. 1998 RemovedTorn down about 1998Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  12. 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.

Eagle Peak is in Kootenai County, about 10 miles north-northeast of St. Maries, at 5,199 feet.1,2 Firelookout.com lists the land as Coeur d'Alene National Forest, Idaho Department of Lands and Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation ground.1

The first lookout was a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, which went up in 1934.1,2,3 A 53-foot tower of treated timber, with an R-6 flat cab, took its place in 1963.1,2,3 In 1966 the Idaho Department of Lands took over running the lookout.1

Firelookout.com lists named staff in scattered years from 1944 to 1975, and nine of its 19 named entries are married couples.1 The Idaho Fire Lookouts site cites the Kellogg Evening News for several of the early names.2

Mark Grorud, who staffed the lookout in 1971, wrote a memory of the summer for the Idaho Fire Lookouts site. He said the lookout was reachable by car but fairly isolated, and that he spotted just a pair of small smokes all summer.2 He also called it a 60-foot wooden tower, which does not match the 53-foot tower the sites date to 1963.2,3

Sources differ on how the tower ended. Firelookout.com puts the last use in the 1970s and dates the teardown to about 1998, after the tower was still standing in 1996.1 The Idaho Fire Lookouts site also gives 1998 for the teardown, and the Forest Lookouts site says it was abandoned in the 1980s.2,3

We found no source that describes what remains at the summit today, or whether the public can reach it. Part of the land is listed as Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation, so anyone interested should check with the land managers first. The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks the tower as gone.4

  1. Eagle Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/id/eaglepeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Eagle Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/eagle-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Eagle Peak, Forest Lookouts (Idaho listings), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/eagle-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Eagle Peak Lookout
Eagle Peak 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. 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: dates, 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: design, height, 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, 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.