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Fire lookout · Boundary County, Idaho

Hall Mountain Lookout

Boundary County tower site in the Kaniksu NF: a 1927 cupola cabin, later towers, and a 2001 sale that moved the timber tower; only footings and a flagpole were found in 2023.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Timber tower sold for off-site removal and moved in 2001; cement footings and a flagpole were found at the site on a 2023 visit

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
Trail
A 2023 Idaho Fire Lookouts visit found the drive to the location a very easy ride

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerCupola cabin (1927); 40' pole L-4 tower (1934 or 1935); treated timber tower with L-4 cab (1956 or 1957)The designs: L-4, Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1927
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Boundary County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.96206, −116.36136 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-hall-mountain

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 4.3 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. 1927 BuiltCupola cabin; firelookout.com says the lookout began this yearSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1933 First staffedEarliest name in both lists: Fred DanquistSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1934 Built40' pole L-4 tower; Idaho Fire Lookouts gives 1935Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1940 StaffedLester A. Spurgeon, recorded as having moved partway through the seasonSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  5. No record between 1940 and 1956
  6. 1956 BuiltTreated timber tower with L-4 cab; the 2001 sale notice calls it a 1957 lookoutSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  7. No record between 1956 and 1981
  8. 1981 StaffedLast dated name in both lists; no later staffing describedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  9. No record between 1981 and 2001
  10. 2001 RemovedForest Service offered the lookout for off-site removal (bids opening June 28, 2001); bought by Gary Webber (or Weber) and movedSources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  11. No record between 2001 and 2023
  12. 2023 Condition assessmentIdaho Fire Lookouts visit, post dated August 21, 2023: most cement footings, a flagpole and debris found; summit platform goneSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  13. 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.

Hall Mountain is in Boundary County, Idaho.1 It sits on the Kaniksu National Forest, about seven miles east-southeast of Porthill.2

The site's first structure, a cupola cabin, was built in 1927.2,3 A 40-foot pole L-4 tower followed in 1934 or 1935, depending on which site you read.2,3 In 1956 a treated timber tower with an L-4 cab went up, by one account a mile south-southeast of the summit.2,3 The 2001 sale notice calls that tower a 1957 lookout.4 Sources give its height as 35, 40 or 41 feet.2,3,4 A platform tower also stood on the summit.2,3 One source gives it as 25 feet and the other as 35 feet, and no date is known for it.2,3

Two sites list the people who staffed Hall Mountain from 1933 to 1981.2,3 Fred Danquist is named for 1933, and Mr. and Mrs. Don Goff for 1950.2,3 A 1940 entry records a lookout who moved partway through the season.3 One name has no year attached.3

In 2001 the Forest Service offered the lookout for sale for off-site removal, with bids opening that June.4 A buyer, Gary Webber, bought the 35-foot tower and moved it.3,4 Another site credits Gary Weber of the Forest Fire Lookout Association with removing it that year.2 Hall Mountain has no tower today.1

A visit described in a post dated August 21, 2023 found most of the cement footings left by the various towers, plus a flagpole and a fair amount of debris that the writers believed dated from the right period.3 The summit platform was gone.3 The writers also described the drive to the location as a very easy one.3 No source we read describes the site after that visit, and none says whether the land is open to visitors, so check with the Kaniksu National Forest before you go.

  1. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Hall Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/hallmtnid.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Hall Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/hall-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Hall Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/hall-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Hall Mountain Lookout
Hall Mountain 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 1.5 km (0.9 mi).

    • FFLA: 48.96206, −116.36136
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 48.97384, −116.37159

    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: 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

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