Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho
Indian Post Office Lookout
Clearwater NF ground site in Idaho County, ID; a log cabin with cupola built in 1922, destroyed at an undated later time, and listed as gone.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed sometime after 1922; no date given in the sources read
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?
- Unknown
- Trail
- Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the entry Drive-Up Destroyed
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Ground-level cablog cabin with cupolaThe design: Cupola house
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1922
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Clearwater National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Idaho County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 46.53264, −114.99111
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-indian-post-office
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 a typical height for a lookout like it.
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
- 1922 BuiltLog cabin with cupola; a Montana History Portal photo shows it under construction in 1922Sources: firelookout.com, facebook.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- 1922 EventJune 24, 1922 newspaper item, quoted by Forest Lookouts, says a national forest examiner would visit the lookout station at Indian postofficeSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.
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.
The Indian Post Office Lookout stood in Idaho County on the Clearwater National Forest, about 13 miles west of Powell Ranger Station, at an elevation of 6,970 feet.1,2
The lookout was a log cabin topped by a cupola, and the sources date it to 1922.1,2,3 A photograph from that year in the Bud Moore collection at the University of Montana shows the building under construction.4 A June 1922 newspaper item, quoted on the Forest Lookouts site, said a national forest examiner would visit the lookout station at Indian postoffice during a tour of inspection.5
The firelookout.com listing says the cabin was destroyed after 1922, but gives no date for its destruction.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts also marks it as destroyed.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list shows it as a ground lookout that is gone.6
No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site, or whether the land is open to visitors today. Idaho Fire Lookouts carries the label "Drive-Up Destroyed."3
- Indian Post Office Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/indianpostoffice.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Indian Post Office Lookout, Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/NPClwNFs/posts/indian-post-office-lookout-built-in-1922-was-a-log-lookout-cabin-with-cupola-thi/2112498852108779/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Indian Post Office Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/indian-post-office-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Indian Post Office Lookout, Montana History Portal, https://www.mtmemory.org/nodes/view/69202 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Indian Post Office, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/indian-post-office.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
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
- 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: 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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
- Indian Post Office Lookout, built in 1922 (post) (Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, Facebook) (opens another site)
- Indian Post Office Lookout (Montana History Portal (University of Montana Mansfield Library; photo by Bud Moore, credit U.S. Forest Service)) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Indian Post Office on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Indian Post Office Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Indian Post Office on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.