Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho
Gibson Point Lookout
30-foot pole tower built 1933 in the St. Joe National Forest; destroyed 1953; no source describes what remains at the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1953 according to both lookout pages.
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
- Type
- Cab on a tower30-foot pole tower, called L-4 in the sourcesThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1933
- Height
- 30 ft (9.1 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- St. Joe National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Shoshone County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 47.38101, −115.85500
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-gibson-point
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 3.7 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
- 1933 Built30-foot pole L-4 tower. Both lookout pages give 1933.Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
- No record between 1933 and 1953
- 1953 DestroyedBoth lookout pages give 1953. No cause is given.Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.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.
Gibson Point Lookout was a 30-foot pole tower that the sources call an L-4, built in 1933 in the St. Joe National Forest, about nine miles north of Avery, Idaho.1,2 Its listed elevation is 5,490 feet.1 A patrol point stood 1.5 miles to the south-southeast, atop Marcus Cook Point.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list places the tower in Shoshone County.3
Both lookout pages date the tower's destruction to 1953, and they agree on the years they give.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list marks the tower as gone.3
None of the three pages describes what, if anything, remains at the site today.1,2,3 Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as Drive-Up, but that label does not say whether the site is open to the public.1
- Gibson Point Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/gibson-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Gibson Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/gibsonpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
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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, 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
- 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
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Gibson Point on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Gibson Point 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.