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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Elk City Lookout

An L-4 tower about one mile east of Elk City, Idaho, dated to about 1930 and abandoned in 1942; the FFLA list marks it gone.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1942; the FFLA list marks the tower 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?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towertower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Nez Perce National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.82346, −115.42077
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-elk-city

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. 1930 BuiltL-4 tower about one mile east of Elk City; the Forest Service list gives a date of about 1930Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1942 AbandonedAbandonedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 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.

The Elk City lookout stood about one mile east of Elk City, Idaho, in Idaho County, on the Nez Perce National Forest.1,2 The Forest Service list places it in Section 25, Township 29 North, Range 8 East.2 Its listed elevation is 4,549 feet.1,3

An L-4 tower went up around 1930.1,4,2 The Idaho County listing also records an L-4 cab.4

Four sources date the abandonment to 1942.1,3,4,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list marks the tower as gone.5

The Forest Service list was compiled in April 2010 from Ray Kresek's Fire Lookouts of the Northwest and other sources.2

Idaho Fire Lookouts files the site under its Selway region and marks it hike-in.3 No source describes what remains at the site today.

  1. Elk City Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/elkcity.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Nez Perce National Forest Lookouts, US Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259204 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Elk City Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/elk-city-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho County (A-L) - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts, Idaho, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/idaho-county-a-l.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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: 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
  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.