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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Freeman Peak Lookout

Log cabin with cupola on Freeman Peak, built in the early 1920s and destroyed in the mid-1950s; sources disagree on the dates.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in the mid-1950s; sources give 1954 or 1956

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 a hike-in; no source describes access today

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabLog cabin with cupolaThe design: Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1921
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Nez Perce National Forest (Bitterroot National Forest until 1957)
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.14757, −114.78435
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-freeman-peak

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. 1916 StaffedLookout Billie Hartman on Freeman's Peak, per a 1916 Idaho County Free Press item quoted by the Forest Lookouts siteSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1919 StaffedKnown staff: Frank FreemanSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1921 BuiltLog cabin built near water; alidade placed on the peakSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1923 MovedCabin moved to the peak and a cupola added; a University of Idaho document gives 1923 as the build yearSources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, objects.lib.uidaho.edu
  5. 1926 BuiltLog cabin with cupola built atop the south point, per three lookout sitesSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1926 and 1954
  7. 1954 DestroyedForest Service list and one lookout-history site give 1954; Idaho Fire Lookouts and firelookout.com give 1956Sources: fs.usda.gov, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  8. 1957 EventAdministration transferred from Bitterroot National Forest to Nez Perce National ForestSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  9. 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.

Freeman Peak stands at 7,298 feet in Idaho County, about six miles east-northeast of the Moose Creek Ranger Station.1 A lookout was posted there years before the cabin went up.2 A 1916 item from the Idaho County Free Press, quoted on one lookout-history site, reports that Billie Hartman, the lookout on Freeman's Peak, had come down to the station a few days earlier.2 Idaho Fire Lookouts gives 1919 as a staffing year and names Frank Freeman.3

A log cabin went up near water in 1921, and a sighting instrument called an alidade was placed on the summit.2 In 1923 that cabin was moved to the peak and given a cupola.2 A University of Idaho document gives 1923 as the build year for a log cabin with a cupola.4 Three lookout sites put a cabin with a cupola on the south point in 1926, and one of them credits that date to a source it calls Kresek.1,3,2

Sources disagree on when the cabin was destroyed in the mid-1950s. The Forest Service list and one lookout-history site say 1954, while Idaho Fire Lookouts and firelookout.com say 1956.5,2,3,1 In 1957 administration of the site moved from the Bitterroot National Forest to the Nez Perce National Forest.2

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as a hike-in.3 An undated University of Idaho document says that only one of the forest's 20 log-cabin lookouts with cupolas remains, Sourdough.4 No source I found describes what, if anything, is left on the summit today, or whether the ground is open to visitors.

  1. Freeman Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/freemanpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Freeman Peak, Forest Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/freeman-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Freeman Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/freeman-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Log Cabins with Cupolas, Nez Perce National Forest, University of Idaho, https://objects.lib.uidaho.edu/sbw/sbw192.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Nez Perce National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259204 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Freeman Peak Lookout
Freeman Peak LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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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: 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
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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, 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

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