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Fire lookout · Boundary County, Idaho

McCormick Ridge Lookout

Boundary County 20-foot pole L-4 lookout built in 1933 and destroyed in 1961 or 1962; no source describes what remains.

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

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
Listed as a hike-in site on Idaho Fire Lookouts; the tower is destroyed

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 20-foot pole towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Boundary County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.59181, −116.67228
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-mccormick-ridge

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. 1933 Built20-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1933 and 1950
  3. 1950 AbandonedNot used or maintained since 1950, when the Forest Service moved to aerial patrolSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1961 DestroyedDate on firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts; a June 1962 newspaper item conflictsSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 1962 EventJune 1962 newspaper: among six abandoned towers being toppled and burned; work due to finish the next weekSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 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.

McCormick Ridge is in Boundary County, Idaho, about 11 miles northeast of Coolin, at 6,563 feet.1 It stood in the Kaniksu National Forest.1

The lookout went up in 1933 as a 20-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab.1,2 A June 1962 newspaper item, quoted on Forest Lookouts, says the Civilian Conservation Corps built six lookouts in the 1930s, and McCormick Ridge was among them.3

According to the same item, the towers had been left idle and unmaintained since 1950, when the Forest Service switched to aerial patrol.3

The sources disagree on when the tower came down. Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts both give 1961.1,2 The 1962 item lists McCormick Ridge among the abandoned towers still being toppled and burned, with the work due to finish the next week.3

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site, or whether it is open to visitors. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as a hike-in location, and says the tower is destroyed.2

  1. McCormick Ridge Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/mccormickridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. McCormick Ridge Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/mccormick-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. McCormick Ridge, Forest Lookouts (western US), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/mccormick-ridge.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: dates, 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, agency, staffing, 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.