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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Goat Mountain

Shoshone County lookout: 1916 crow's nest with cabin, 1934 50-foot pole tower, destroyed 1961; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1961 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
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1916
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.99262, −115.84718 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-goat-mountain-2

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 3.9 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 BuiltCrow's nest with cabinSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1916 and 1934
  3. 1934 Built50-foot pole tower; the pages word it as an L-4 cab or an L-4 towerSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1934 and 1961
  5. 1961 DestroyedBoth lookout pages give 1961.Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  6. 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.

This Goat Mountain lookout sat in Shoshone County, about 20 miles east of Clarkia, Idaho.1,2 It stood on St. Joe National Forest land at 6,155 feet.3 It is a different site from the Goat Mountain in Boundary County.4

The first structure, dated 1916, was a crow's nest with a cabin.3,1 A 50-foot pole tower followed in 1934.3,1 The two pages word the 1934 tower differently, one as a tower with an L-4 cab and the other as an L-4 tower, but both give 50 feet.3,1

A patrol point on Blackdome lay about 1.5 miles to the southeast.3,1

The lookout was destroyed in 1961.3,1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list marks it as gone.2

None of the pages describes what, if anything, remains at the site today.3,1,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the lookout as Drive-Up, but that label does not say whether the site is open to the public.3

  1. Goat Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/goatmtn269.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Idaho lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Goat Mtn, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/goat-mtn/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Goat Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://firelookout.com/id/goatmtn234.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Goat Mtn
Goat MtnPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the location by 1.9 km (1.2 mi).

    • FFLA: 46.99262, −115.84718
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 47.00885, −115.83934

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

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, 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, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.