Fire lookout · Adams County, Idaho
Horse Mountain Lookout
Also known as Horse Mountain – West
Built in 1935 on the Payette National Forest, this L-4 tower remains staffed and drive-up accessible, with staffing records limited to two documented years.
- Standing
- Restricted access
- Verified
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Restricted access
Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. Active, drive-up accessible, seasonally staffed Forest Service lookout; not a public rental.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Staffed during fire season (as of 2026)
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerR1/L-4 cab, 30-foot open timber towerThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Wood
- Built
- 1935
- Height
- 30 ft (9.1 m)
- Elevation
- 6,892 ft (2,101 m)
- Agency
- US Forest Service - Payette National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Adams County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 45.12198, −116.67018
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-horse-mountain-2
View from the cab
What you see from the 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.
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
- 1935 BuiltR1/L-4 cab constructed on a 30-foot open timber tower.Source: nhlr.org
- 1939 StaffedStaffed by "Scoop" McCoy, per the Post Register.Source: idahofirelookouts.com
- No record between 1939 and 1981
- 1981 StaffedStaffed by Leonard Mooney, per the Adams County Record.Source: idahofirelookouts.com
- No record between 1981 and 2020
- 2020 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on the National Historic Lookout Register, September 29, 2020, as US 1434, nominated by Brad Eells.Source: nhlr.org
- TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.
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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Horse Mountain Lookout was built in 1935 on the Payette National Forest: an R1/L-4 cabin on a 30-foot open timber tower.1 It sits at an elevation of 6,892 feet.1,2
Staffing records are thin, but a couple of names have surfaced: "Scoop" McCoy was reported working the tower in 1939, per a Post Register article, and Leonard Mooney staffed it in 1981, according to the Adams County Record.2 Beyond those two mentions, there's little documented about who else kept watch there over the decades.
The lookout was added to the National Historic Lookout Register on September 29, 2020, as US 1434, nominated by Brad Eells.1 It's listed today as staffed and reachable by drive-up access during the season.2 Sources don't indicate any period of abandonment, fire damage, or replacement — the 1935 tower appears to be the same structure still in service.
Given the limited documentation available, this is a tower with real gaps in its known history: no record here of exactly how many seasons it ran dark versus staffed, or who else sat watch there between the 1930s and the 1980s. Anyone with more detail on Horse Mountain's staffing history would be filling in a real blank. As with other active Forest Service lookouts, it's a working fire-season facility rather than a public rental, so visitors should check current access and conditions with the Payette National Forest before planning a trip.
- Horse Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/horse-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
- Horse Mountain – West, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/horse-mountain-west/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
Photos
Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.
Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) Gave us: type, status, register numbers, 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: design, staffing, photos, 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: 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
- OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures (opens another site) Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: height 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, staffing, 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
- NHLR register entry US 1434 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Horse Mountain Lookout - Forest Lookouts Page (opens another site)
- Horse Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Horse Mountain – West on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- OpenStreetMap way 1013917589 (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.