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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

McDonald Peak Lookout

Shoshone County, ID: an L-4 cab on a pole tower (dated 1931 or 1934); the cab moved to Spyglass Peak in 1943 or 1944 and the tower is gone.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower gone per the state index; the L-4 cab was moved to Spyglass Peak

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
Cab on a towerpole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.76007, −116.27388
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-mcdonald-peak

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. 1931 BuiltPole tower with L-4 cab. Idaho Fire Lookouts gives 1934 instead.Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1943 MovedL-4 cab moved from McDonald Peak to Spyglass Peak for living quarters. Willhite gives 1944.Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, willhiteweb.com
  3. No record between 1943 and 2019
  4. 2019 RestoredSpyglass ground house, which Willhite ties to the moved cab, renovated and put on the rental program (Idaho Fire Lookouts dates the renovation to 2019). Recreation.gov says restoration began in 2012 and finished in 2019.Sources: willhiteweb.com, idahofirelookouts.com, recreation.gov
  5. 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 (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

McDonald Peak, in Shoshone County, once carried an L-4 cab on a pole tower in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest.1,2,3 The sources do not agree on the year. Firelookout.com and the Forest Lookouts site both date the tower to 1931,1,2 while Idaho Fire Lookouts gives 1934.4

In 1943 the cab was moved to Spyglass Peak, where it became living quarters.1,2,5 Willhite's Spyglass page says the move happened in 1944 instead.6 The National Historic Lookout Register also dates the move to 1943, but it does not name the site the cab came from.7 The state index lists the McDonald Peak tower as gone.3

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the McDonald Peak summit, or whether that ground is open to visitors. The cab itself is now the ground house at Spyglass Peak.6 Idaho Fire Lookouts dates the house's renovation to 2019 and lists it for rent.5 Recreation.gov describes a 14-by-14-foot cabin for four guests, with no water or electricity.8 That listing calls the ground house a 1930s building, while Willhite ties it to the cab moved from McDonald Peak.8,6 Willhite adds that the last stretch of road is gated, so guests without a rental must walk it.6

  1. McDonald Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/mcdonaldpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. McDonald Peak - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/mcdonald-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. McDonald Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/mcdonald-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Spyglass Ground House, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/spyglass-ground-house/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  6. Spyglass Lookout, WillhiteWeb.com, https://willhiteweb.com/idaho_lookouts/spyglass_lookout/national_forest_066.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  7. Spyglass Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/spyglass-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  8. Spyglass Ground House, Recreation.gov, https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/10007160 (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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, 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, 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.