Fire lookout · Latah County, Idaho
East Gold Hill Lookout
50-ft pole L-4 tower on the St. Joe National Forest in Latah County, built 1935 and gone in 1965; sources disagree on whether it was destroyed or removed.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone since 1965. Sources differ on whether it was destroyed or removed; none describes the site today.
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
- Type
- Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 50-ft pole towerThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1935
- Height
- 50 ft (15.2 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- St. Joe National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Latah County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 46.97658, −116.77947
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-east-gold-hill
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
- 1935 Built50-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1935 and 1965
- 1965 DestroyedFirelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts say destroyed; Rex's page says removed in the fall after fire seasonSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
East Gold Hill had a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, built in 1935 in Latah County on the St. Joe National Forest.1,2,3
The tower stood from 1935 to 1965.1,2,3 Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts both say it was destroyed in 1965.1,2 Firelookout.com's heading for the site reads R.I.P. 1935-1965.1
Rex's page gives the same year but a different ending. It says the tower was taken away in the autumn, once fire season was over.3 The three pages agree on the year but not on how the tower ended.1,2,3
Photographs on Firelookout.com are courtesy of the Fire Lookout Museum and Michael DeMarco.1 No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or says whether it is open to the public, so check with the St. Joe National Forest before going.1,2,3
- East Gold Hill Fire Lookout Tower, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/eastgoldhill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- East Gold Hill Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/east-gold-hill-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- East Gold Hill - Forest Lookouts (Rex's Fire Lookout Page), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/east-gold-hill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: design, height, 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, 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
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- East Gold Hill on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- East Gold Hill Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- East Gold Hill on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.