FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

High Springs

Nez Perce NF lookout 7 miles NW of Moose Creek: a 20-foot tower with an L-4 cab, built 1935 and abandoned 1939; one page says it was blown down in 1957.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1939; one page says it was blown down in 1957. No source describes what remains

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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 20-foot towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Nez Perce National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.18228, −115.03732
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-high-springs

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 4.0 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. 1935 Built20-foot tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1939 AbandonedAbandonedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1939 and 1957
  4. 1957 DestroyedDynamite used to blow the tower down, per the Forest Lookouts pageSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 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.

High Springs was a lookout on the Nez Perce National Forest, about 7 miles northwest of Moose Creek Ranger Station, in Idaho County.1,2

The site is listed at 6,509 feet.1

A 20-foot tower with an L-4 cab went up in 1935.1,2 The L-4 was a pre-cut frame house measuring 14 feet by 14 feet.3 Forest Service style notes say that design was produced between 1929 and 1953.3

The lookout was abandoned in 1939.1,4,2 One Forest Lookouts page says dynamite was used to blow the tower down in 1957.2

Firelookout.com and the FFLA list both record the site as gone.1,5

Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site as hike-in.4 I found no source that describes what, if anything, remains at the site today.

  1. High Springs Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/id/highsprings.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. High Spring, Forest Lookouts (western US), idaholookouts.weebly.com, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/high-spring.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Lookout Styles, Nez Perce National Forest, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259212 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. High Spring Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/high-spring-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

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, 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: design, height, 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, 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.