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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Huckleberry Mountain

Shoshone County, Idaho St. Joe National Forest lookout: pole tower in the 1930s, R-6 tower replaced it, auctioned 2013, removed 2014; ruins and footings remain.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed in 2014 by a private owner; timbers and cement footings remain at the site.

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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 20-foot pole tower, later an R-6 flat cab on a 20-foot treated timber towerThe designs: L-4, R-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1936
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.20354, −116.15602
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-huckleberry-mountain-4

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

  1. 1936 Built20-foot pole tower with L-4 cab (Kresek-credited list; Idaho Fire Lookouts). FireLookout.com says first used in 1933Sources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1944 StaffedEarliest year on the Idaho Fire Lookouts known-staff list; the page names the staff for that year, which the story does not repeatSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  3. No record between 1944 and 1974
  4. 1974 Replaced by a new structure20-foot treated timber tower with R-6 flat cab; FireLookout.com gives 1975Sources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  5. No record between 1974 and 1995
  6. 1995 Last staffedStaffed up to the 1995 season, then moved to emergency statusSource: firelookout.com
  7. No record between 1995 and 2013
  8. 2013 EventAuctioned through GSA; bid closed October 24, 2013 with a maximum bid of $425 submittedSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.org
  9. 2014 EventNew owners planned to re-erect the lookout in north-central Idaho (FFLA 2014 report); completion not confirmedSource: firelookout.org
  10. 2014 RemovedRemoved by a private party in October 2014 (FireLookout.com, Kresek-credited list); FFLA 2014 report says late 2014Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.org
  11. 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.

Huckleberry Mountain sits about 20 miles southeast of St. Maries in Shoshone County, Idaho, on St. Joe National Forest land.1 The site's elevation is 5,662 feet.1

FireLookout.com dates the first lookout to 1933 and says it was a 20-foot pole tower topped by an L-4 cab.1 A list credited to Kresek gives 1936 for that tower, and Idaho Fire Lookouts gives the same year.2,3 A 20-foot treated timber tower with an R-6 flat cab replaced it in 1974 or 1975; the sources differ on the year.1,2,3

FireLookout.com reports that staffing continued through the 1995 season, after which the lookout went to emergency status.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts lists known staff years, starting with 1944.3

The tower was sold at auction in 2013.1 Bidding in a GSA auction ended on October 24, 2013; the maximum bid submitted was $425.2 Idaho Fire Lookouts reports a sale for under $500 but dates the sale to 2014, which disagrees with the 2013 dates.1,2,3 In October 2014 a private owner took the tower down.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's 2014 chapter report said the new owners planned to put it back up in north-central Idaho.4

Idaho Fire Lookouts reports that ruins remain at the site: some timbers from the R-6 tower and cement footings from both towers.3 Its page carries a Drive-Up tag.3 The sources I could read do not say whether the public can reach the site now. I could not confirm from them whether the tower was re-erected, or where it stands today.

  1. Huckleberry Mountain Fire Lookout Tower, FireLookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/huckleberrymtnid.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Huckleberry Mountain - Forest Lookouts, Idaho Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/huckleberry-mountain1.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Huckleberry Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/huckleberry-mountain-lo/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Northern Idaho/Montana Chapter report, 2014, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/cr-idnmt-2014.pdf (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. 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
  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.