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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Frenchman Butte Lookout

Clearwater NF lookout: L-4 cab on a pole tower, dated 1934 (1933 in one history), torn down about 1960. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower torn down around 1960 and gone by 1963; no source describes what remains at 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?
Yes, you can drive up

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab (one 1981 history says 50 feet)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.31613, −115.54059
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-frenchman-butte

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 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. 1934 BuiltThree sources give 1934 and a 40-foot tower; a 1981 history quoted on idaholookouts.weebly.com gives 1933 and 50 feetSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
  2. No record between 1934 and 1960
  3. 1960 DestroyedForest Service list says destroyed in 1960; the 1981 history says tumbled to the ground and burned around 1960Sources: fs.usda.gov, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 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.

Frenchman Butte, in the Clearwater National Forest, once carried an L-4 cabin on a pole tower.1 Three sources give 1934 and a 40-foot tower.1,2,3 A 1981 history of the Lochsa Ranger District, quoted on a lookout-history website, instead gives 1933 and a 50-foot tower, built by Earnest Hartman and Richard Stadtman at a cost of $915.4 The sources disagree on the year and the height, and this story cannot settle which is right.1,2,3,4

Seasonal use continued until the late 1940s or early 1950s, after which the site came off the fire plan.4 The Forest Service list says it was abandoned in the 1940s.3 A garage added to the site in 1936 burned down around 1958.4

Its end came around 1960.3,4 The 1981 history says the stairway had become unsafe by 1960, so the tower was knocked over and burned after its lightning protection had been salvaged.4 The Forest Service list says it was destroyed in 1960.3 The firelookout.com page and the Idaho Fire Lookouts page both say it was gone by 1963.1,2

Today, the Idaho Fire Lookouts page labels the site drive-up, but it says nothing about what is left there.2 No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site now.

  1. Frenchman Butte Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/frenchmanbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Frenchman Butte Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/frenchman-butte-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho County (A-l) - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts website, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/idaho-county-a-l.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Frenchman Butte Lookout
Frenchman Butte 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. 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.