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Fire lookout · Kootenai County, Idaho

Elk Mountain Lookout

Two 1930s lookout sites near Lake Coeur d'Alene; the 1934 L-4 tower was destroyed in 1957, and its footings remain, about 5.5 miles from the trailhead.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1957; footings and a post are reported at the sites.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. On national forest land; hikers reach it on foot, and some forest roads are gated.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
About 5.5 miles from the Mineral Ridge Trailhead

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 tower, about 40 ft, with a 50-ft platform at a patrol pointThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Kootenai County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.59736, −116.60798
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-elk-mountain

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. 1931 BuiltCrow's nest about a mile west of the summitSources: firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  2. 1934 Built40-ft L-4 tower near the summit; 50-ft platform at a patrol point to the westSources: firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1957
  4. 1957 DestroyedDestroyedSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, willhiteweb.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.

Elk Mountain sits about nine miles southeast of Coeur d'Alene, inside the Coeur d'Alene National Forest.1 Its first lookout was a crow's nest put up in 1931, about a mile west of the summit.1,2

In 1934 a 40-foot L-4 tower went up, and a 50-foot platform was built at a patrol point to the west.1,2 The sources disagree about where the tower stood. Firelookout.com puts it on the summit, while WillhiteWeb places it at the eastern of two sites and suggests the high point between them had no observation tower.1,2 A height of 50 feet fits the patrol-point platform, not the tower.1,2

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists two 1930s staff members, John Jordan and Lou Crampton, each cited to a book about White Pines and Fire.3

The lookout was destroyed in 1957.1,4,2 WillhiteWeb reports that the footings of both lookouts survive, possibly not for long, and that a post still stands at the Elk Mountain site. Both sites are overgrown, and for the moment neither has a view.2 A hike write-up on NaughtyHiker found the lookout long gone and the views limited.5

The sites lie on national forest land, and hikers have reached them on foot.1,2 WillhiteWeb's hike began at the Mineral Ridge Trailhead, 5.5 miles from the sites, and some forest roads in the area are gated.1,2

  1. Elk Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/elkmtn243.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Elk Mountain Lookout Sites, WillhiteWeb.com, https://www.willhiteweb.com/idaho_lookouts/elk_mountain/mineral_ridge_046.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Elk Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/elk-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Elk Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts, Idaho, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/elk-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Elk Mountain, NaughtyHiker, https://www.naughtyhiker.com/elk-mountain/ (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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, 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.