Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho
East Grouse Lookout
A 20-ft L-4 lookout built in 1935 by CCC Company 531 on the Coeur d'Alene National Forest near Mullan; listed as removed or gone about 1950.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as removed or gone about 1950.
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
- Trail
- Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in.
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower20-ft round native timber pole tower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1935
- Height
- 20 ft (6.1 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Coeur d'Alene National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Shoshone County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 47.50544, −115.80989 sources disagree
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-east-grouse
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 3.6 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 BuiltCivilian Conservation Corps Company 531, working from Camp F-132 at Big Creek, completed a 20-ft round native timber tower with an L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1937 StaffedHerbert Vance listed as known staffSource: idahofirelookouts.com
- 1950 AbandonedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
- 1950 RemovedListed as removed or goneSources: 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 Grouse stood in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, about three miles north of Mullan in Shoshone County, Idaho.1 Its listed elevation is 6,081 feet.1,2
The Civilian Conservation Corps built it in 1935. Company 531, working from Camp F-132 at Big Creek, finished a round tower of native timber, listed at 20 feet and fitted with an L-4 cab.3 The other two sources describe the same 20-foot L-4 tower.1,2
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists one known staff member, Herbert Vance, for 1937.2
Firelookout.com gives the end as 1950 and calls the tower gone.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts lists it as removed that year, and the Shoshone County listing says it was gone around 1950.2,3
The site is marked hike-in, so visitors reach it on foot.2 No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site today.
- East Grouse Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/eastgrouse.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- East Grouse Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/east-grouse-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts, Idaho, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Where sources disagree
We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.
Sources disagree on the location by 2.1 km (1.3 mi).
- FFLA: 47.50544, −115.80989
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 47.50632, −115.78183
The map uses the position from FFLA.
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, 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
- 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
- Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts (Forest Lookouts, Idaho) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- East Grouse on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- East Grouse Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.