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Fire lookout · Custer County, Idaho

Mid-Cottonwood Point Lookout

Also known as Cottonwood Point (Mid-Cottonwood Point), Cottonwood Point, (Mid)

Standard L-4 cabin built by the Forest Service in 1934 on Cottonwood Point in Idaho's Challis forest; abandoned in 1946 and registered in 2026.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. Hike-in site inside the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness on Forest Service land. The level is inferred from the wilderness and hike-in notes; no source states an access rule.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Listed as hike-in by Idaho Fire Lookouts; the sources give no route, distance or road to the summit.
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing sources disagree
Type
Ground-level cabStandard L-4 cabinThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
8,975 ft (2,736 m)
Agency
Salmon-Challis National Forest (Challis portion)
Land
Federal land
Location
Custer County, Idaho
Coordinates
44.62305, −114.68648
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-mid-cottonwood-point

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1934 BuiltStandard L-4 cabin built by the U.S. Forest Service on the minor west summit of Cottonwood PointSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1946 AbandonedAbandoned; no longer serves as an active fire towerSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. No record between 1946 and 2026
  4. 2026 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered June 28, 2026 as US 1828, ID 165, nominated by PJ SmithSource: nhlr.org
  5. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Mid-Cottonwood Point Lookout is a former fire lookout on the minor west summit of Cottonwood Point, in the Challis portion of the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Custer County, Idaho.1,2 In 1934 the U.S. Forest Service erected an L-4 cabin of its standard design on the summit, at about 8,975 feet.1,3

The cabin was abandoned in 1946.1,2,3 The register says it is no longer in use as a fire tower.1,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts reports no documented staffing history for the site.3 Nothing in these sources confirms that the cabin still stands, and none of them describes its present condition.1,2,3

The National Historic Lookout Register added the site on June 28, 2026, as US 1828, ID 165, with PJ Smith as the nominator.1 The photograph on the register page was taken during a September 1998 Forest Service helicopter flight that documented 19 lookouts or sites on the then Challis National Forest.1

Today the site is a hike-in. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists it that way, and the cabin lies within the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.2,3 No source describes a road to the summit or any current use, so the old cabin should be treated as an abandoned structure rather than a place to climb.2,3

Do not confuse this with a different Cottonwood Point site in Bonner County, where a 40-foot pole tower topped by an L-4 cab went up in 1937.4

  1. Mid-Cottonwood Point Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/mid-cottonwood-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Cottonwood Point Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/cottonwood.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Cottonwood Point Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com), https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/cottonwood-point-lookout-2/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Cottonwood Point Lookout Site, WillhiteWeb.com, https://willhiteweb.com/idaho_lookouts/cottonwood_point/lookout_site_020.htm (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

The photo was taken by me with my own camera on Sept.30, 1998 from a USFS helicopter on a flight to document the lookouts on the then Challis National Forest. Flight was set up by Fire Mgt. Officer Doug Baker. Jill McCurdy was the videographer, Dave Labelle was navigator, Jim Reid was the pilot. Nineteen lookouts or sites were documented. Since they were taken from a moving helicopter, some photos are not perfectly focused.
The photo was taken by me with my own camera on Sept.30, 1998 from a USFS helicopter on a flight to document the lookouts on the then Challis National Forest. Flight was set up by Fire Mgt. Officer Doug Baker. Jill McCurdy was the videographer, Dave Labelle was navigator, Jim Reid was the pilot. Nineteen lookouts or sites were documented. Since they were taken from a moving helicopter, some photos are not perfectly focused (1998)Photo: PJ Smith, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Cottonwood Point L.O.
Cottonwood Point L.OPhoto: the U.S. Forest Service, Jim Reid and Luke Channer, via firelookout.com · source
Cottonwood Point L.O.
Cottonwood Point L.OPhoto: the U.S. Forest Service, Jim Reid and Luke Channer, via firelookout.com · source
Cottonwood Point in 2017
Cottonwood Point in 2017 (2017)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service, Jim Reid and Luke Channer, via firelookout.com · source
Cottonwood Point in 2017
Cottonwood Point in 2017 (2017)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service, Jim Reid and Luke Channer, via firelookout.com · source
Cottonwood Point Lookout
Cottonwood 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.

Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on whether it still stands.

    • FFLA: Standing
    • NHLR: Standing
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: Standing
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): Gone

    NHLR lists lookouts that were standing when registered. idahofirelookouts.com's status is read from a short summary.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: what it is built of, design, dates, photos, 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
  4. 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
  5. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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
  6. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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

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