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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Halfway Peak Lookout

Coeur d'Alene NF L-4 cab on the south point, dated 1931 and abandoned in 1942; the Idaho site's 2022 notes say almost nothing is left.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Idaho Fire Lookouts says almost nothing is left; its notes, dated September 13, 2022, mention some grounding wire and one piece of cement with rebar

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 it as hike-in

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.75567, −116.14272 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-halfway-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 4.4 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 BuiltL-4 cab atop the south point, per firelookout.com and Idaho Fire LookoutsSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1942 AbandonedBoth sites give 1942 as the abandonment dateSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 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.

Halfway Peak is a former lookout site in Shoshone County, Idaho, on the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, at 5,254 feet.1

Firelookout.com puts an L-4 cab on the peak's south point and dates it 1931.1 The Idaho Fire Lookouts site gives the same date and design.2 Both sites give one end date: the lookout was abandoned in 1942.1,2

The Idaho Fire Lookouts page says little or nothing of the lookout survives.2 Its notes report traces of grounding wire and a stray chunk of cement with rebar, and the post itself is dated September 13, 2022.2

The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks the site as gone.3

The Idaho page lists the site as a hike-in. We found no source that says whether the public may visit, or that describes any standing structure there today.2

  1. Halfway Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/halfwaypeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Halfway Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/halfway-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Halfway Peak Lookout
Halfway Peak LookoutPhoto: 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 760 m.

    • FFLA: 47.75567, −116.14272
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 47.76131, −116.14851

    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, 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.