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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Linfor Hill Lookout

30-foot pole L-4 tower built 1934 six miles northwest of Kellogg, Idaho; removed or burnt in 1950 (sources differ); footings remain.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed in 1950 per firelookout.com; Idaho Fire Lookouts says removed or burnt down; cement footings and tie-downs were found on a visit.

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?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site hike-in. The Thomas Hill patrol platform is about a mile to the southeast.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.60125, −116.19519
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-linfor-hill

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 4.1 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 Built30-foot pole L-4 towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 Event20-foot platform on Thomas Hill, about a mile southeast, served as the patrol point for the Linfor towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1944 StaffedJohn Gunn named as lookout, citing Kellogg Evening NewsSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1950 Removedfirelookout.com says offered for sale to the public and removed; Idaho Fire Lookouts says either removed or burnt down; Weebly list says goneSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 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.

Linfor Hill stands about six miles northwest of Kellogg, in Shoshone County, Idaho, within the Coeur d'Alene National Forest.1 A 30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab went up there in 1934.1,2,3

A 20-foot platform on Thomas Hill, about a mile to the southeast, served as a patrol point for the Linfor tower.1,2,4

John Gunn is the only lookout the sources name, for 1944.1,2

The sources disagree about how the tower ended. Firelookout.com says the tower was put up for public sale and taken down in 1950.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts says that year it was either taken down or burned.2 The Weebly list records it as gone by 1950, and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks it gone as well.3,5

Idaho Fire Lookouts reports that a visit turned up cement footings and tie-downs, and otherwise only the view.2 The site is listed as hike-in, which means it is reached on foot.2 No source says whether the ground is open to visitors or what rules apply there.1,2

The Thomas Hill platform has toppled, yet its concrete footings, pole legs and railings all remain identifiable.4

  1. Linfor Hill Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/linforhill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Linfor Hill Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/linfor-hill-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts, idaholookouts.weebly.com, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Thomas Hill Patrol Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/thomas-hill-patrol-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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: 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, 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.