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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Lick Point Lookout

50-foot pole L-4 tower on St. Joe National Forest, built in 1934 and destroyed in 1951; drive-up, and no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1951

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Drive-up site on St. Joe National Forest land; no source describes a closure

Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
US Forest Service - St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.16616, −115.85974
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-lick-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 3.9 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 Built50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1951
  3. 1951 DestroyedBoth sites give 1951 as the year the tower was destroyedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 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.

Lick Point Lookout stood in the St. Joe National Forest, about six miles south-southwest of Avery in Shoshone County, at an elevation of 4,200 feet.1,2

The tower was a 50-foot pole structure with an L-4 cab. It went up in 1934.1,2

Both websites record the tower as destroyed in 1951.1,2 They agree on the dates and the elevation, and both credit the tower photograph on their pages to the Fire Lookout Museum.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list also files the site as a tower that is gone, which matches both websites.3,1,2

No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site today. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as drive-up, which means it can be reached by road, and no source describes a closure.2

  1. Lick Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/lickpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Lick Point Lookout – Idaho Fire Lookouts, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/lick-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho Lookouts (Alphabetical List), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Lick Point Lookout
Lick Point LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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

  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: dates, 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.