Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho
Horse Point Lookout
Thirty-foot L-4 cab tower built in 1938 in Idaho County, Idaho, abandoned in 1950; the Forest Fire Lookout Association index lists it as gone.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Forest Fire Lookout Association index lists Tower Gone
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 tags the site Hike-In
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower30-foot tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1938
- Height
- 30 ft (9.1 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Nez Perce National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Idaho County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 45.97825, −115.32340
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-horse-point
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 4.2 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
- 1938 Built30-foot tower with L-4 cab, atop the northeast pointSources: firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1950 AbandonedFirelookout.com and the Idaho County list both give 1950Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Horse Point Lookout stood in Idaho County, about 12 miles north-northeast of Elk City, in the Nez Perce National Forest.1,2 The site sits at 5,750 feet.1
The lookout went up in 1938 as a 30-foot tower fitted with an L-4 cab, set atop the northeast point.1,2 The Forest Service list calls it an L-4 pole tower and places it in Section 34, Township 31 North, Range 9 East.3
Firelookout.com and the Idaho County list both give 1950 as the abandonment year.1,2 The Forest Service list gives only the 1950s, which fits that date.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association index lists the tower as gone.4
Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site Hike-In.5 No source we found describes what, if anything, remains at the site now.
- Horse Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/horsepoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho County (A-L), Forest Lookouts (Idaho), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/idaho-county-a-l.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Nez Perce National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259204 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Horse Point Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/horse-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, staffing, 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
- Nez Perce National Forest Lookouts (USDA Forest Service) (opens another site)
- Idaho County (A-L) - Forest Lookouts (Forest Lookouts (Idaho)) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Horse Point on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Horse Point Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.