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Fire lookout · Custer County, Idaho

Horton Peak Lookout

A 1938 L-4 cab built for Sawtooth National Forest fire watch, used in emergencies into the 1970s, now locked and abandoned at the end of a hike-in trail.

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. Reached on foot by a hike-in trail. The cabin is locked and visitors cannot enter the building.

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Hike-in from the Horton Trailhead. Discover Sawtooth gives a 7.2-mile round trip with 2,600 ft of gain; a 2004 visit report describes a three-mile hike.
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing sources disagree
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1938
Height
Unknown
Elevation
9,777 ft (2,980 m)
Agency
Sawtooth National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Custer County, Idaho
Coordinates
43.96583, −114.74750
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-horton-peak

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.

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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1938 BuiltL-4 cab; a local history site credits Civilian Conservation Corps crewsSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1939 EventIdaho Evening Times (August 8, 1939) names the new lookout Horton Peak, for William Horton, a ranger who retired in 1929Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1942 Event4.79-acre lookout site withdrawn from the public domain (December 30, 1942)Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1942 and 1959
  5. 1959 StaffedTimes-News: a man placed on the station, which had not been manned for several yearsSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1960 StaffedOne of two emergency lookouts manned during the fire seasonSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  7. No record between 1960 and 2004
  8. 2004 EventVisit report (September 1, 2004): closed and locked, sits on the ground, shutters battened for securitySource: nhlr.org
  9. 2006 Condition assessmentForest heritage program was preparing a preservation plan, to include a National Historic Lookout Register nomination.Source: firelookout.org
  10. 2015 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered January 3, 2015 as US 1062, ID 106Source: nhlr.org
  11. 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 (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Horton Peak Lookout stands in Custer County, Idaho, on the Sawtooth National Forest.1,2 Its cab follows the L-4 design, and sources date it to 1938.2,3 A local history site credits Civilian Conservation Corps crews with the build.4 A 1939 newspaper item, quoted on that site, named the new lookout for William Horton, a district ranger who retired in 1929.4 In December 1942 the 4.79-acre site was withdrawn from the public domain.4

Its working life was intermittent.4 A July 1959 Times-News item reported a man placed on the station, which had sat unmanned for several years.4 A December 1960 item named it as one of two emergency lookouts staffed in fire season.4 Other sources say it stayed in emergency use into the 1970s.2,3

A visit report from September 1, 2004, on the National Historic Lookout Register describes the cabin as closed, locked and sitting on the ground, and notes an emergency job to secure its shutters.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as abandoned.3 The register recorded the lookout on January 3, 2015.1

Today the lookout is a hike-in site from the Horton Trailhead.3,5 Discover Sawtooth gives a 7.2-mile round trip with 2,600 feet of gain, and says visitors cannot enter the building.5 The 2004 visit report describes a three-mile hike, so sources differ on distance.1 Elevation is recorded two ways as well: 9,777 feet on the register, and 9,900 feet on two other lookout sites.1,2,3

  1. Horton Peak Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/horton-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Horton Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/hortonpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Horton Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/horton-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Horton Peak, Forest Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/horton-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  5. Horton Peak, Discover Sawtooth, https://discoversawtooth.org/horton-peak (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

September 2016 photo
September 2016 photo (2016)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Interior in September 2016
Interior in September 2016 (2016)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Horton Peak L.O.
Horton Peak L.OPhoto: Zach Vickery, via firelookout.com · source
Horton Peak Lookout
Horton 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 whether it still stands.

    • FFLA: Standing
    • NHLR: Standing
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: Standing
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): Gone

    NHLR lists lookouts that were standing when registered. idahofirelookouts.com's status is read from a short summary.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, 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
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists 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
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: what it is built of, design, agency, ownership, dates, 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
  4. 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
  5. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  6. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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
  7. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, 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

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