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Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

Johnagan Mountain Lookout

Clearwater National Forest L-4 cab built in 1934 and abandoned in 1947. Listed as gone; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1947 and listed as gone; no source describes what remains.

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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.52431, −115.38502
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-johnagan-mountain

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 3.8 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. 1934 BuiltL-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, cdil.lib.uidaho.edu
  2. 1947 AbandonedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
  3. 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.

Johnagan Mountain, in the Clearwater National Forest, is listed at 4,387 feet.1,2 Firelookout.com places it about 20 miles east of Pierce and calls the structure a cabin.1 The Forest Service's list gives the same 20 miles east of Pierce and places the site in Section 30, Township 37 North, Range 9 East.3 Both lookout pages date its L-4 cab to 1934.1,2 The University of Idaho's Keeping Watch page describes the L-4 as an early prefabricated cabin, 14x14, with production running until 1952.4

The cab was abandoned in 1947.1,2 A Forest Service-hosted list of Clearwater lookouts gives the same year, but it was compiled in 2016 and draws in part on firelookout.com, so it is not an independent check.3 Firelookout.com marks the site as gone.1

No source describes the site now. Idaho Fire Lookouts files it under hike-in sites, but nothing says what, if anything, remains on the mountain or whether the ground is open to the public.2

  1. Johnagan Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/johnaganmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Johnagan Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/johnagan-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Cabin Architecture, Keeping Watch, University of Idaho, https://cdil.lib.uidaho.edu/keeping-watch/about/cabin-architecture.html (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. Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) Gave us: 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, 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.