FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

East Elk Lookout

A 1931 cupola cabin in Clearwater County, abandoned in 1961 and listed as gone; sources say little else.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1961 and recorded as gone.

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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabCupola cabinThe design: Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
CTPA
Land
Unknown
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.63372, −115.58973
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-east-elk

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 3.9 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. 1931 BuiltCupola cabinSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1933 StaffedOne known staff member named on the Idaho Fire Lookouts site (Bill Bailey); single source, not confirmedSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  3. No record between 1933 and 1961
  4. 1961 AbandonedRecorded as abandoned and goneSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  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.

East Elk Lookout was a cupola cabin built in 1931 in Clearwater County, Idaho.1,2 The sites list its elevation at 5,720 feet.1,2 The firelookout.com page places it 11 miles east of what it calls Headquarters.1 Both pages carry the initials CTPA.1,2 The Elk Butte page on the same site names the Clearwater-Potlatch Timber Protective Association, which is probably what the initials stand for.1,2,3 The Idaho Fire Lookouts site lists one known staff member, Bill Bailey, for 1933, at what it calls the Columbia Breaks Fire Center.2 No second source confirms that entry. The cabin was abandoned in 1961, and both pages list it as gone.1,2 Neither page describes what remains at the site today.1,2 The Idaho site files the lookout among its drive-up sites.2

  1. East Elk Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/eastelk.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. East Elk Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/east-elk-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Elk Butte Lookout, firelookout.com, https://firelookout.com/id/elkbutteid.html (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.