FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Midget

Also known as Midget Peak Lookout

Midget Peak lookout, St. Joe National Forest: 1929 cabin and platform tower, unbuilt 1941 L-4 cab, 2021 fire; tower in ruins at a 2022 visit.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Platform tower reported standing in 2019; a 2022 visit found the site burned after the 2021 Stateline Fire and the tower in ruins

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
Hike-in. The 2022 visit report describes an approach of about 3.5 miles and mentions no closure or permit.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabcabin and platform tower on the west point; an L-4 cab was planned but never builtThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1929
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.13127, −115.36391
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-midget

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 4.0 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. 1929 BuiltCabin on the west point and a platform towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1941 EventMaterial brought to the site for an L-4 cab that was never builtSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1942 AbandonedDate given by Idaho Fire Lookouts; conflicts with 1958Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  4. No record between 1942 and 1958
  5. 1958 AbandonedDate given by the Forest Fire Lookout Association; conflicts with 1942Source: firelookout.com
  6. No record between 1958 and 2019
  7. 2019 EventPlatform tower reported still standingSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  8. 2021 BurnedStateline Fire of summer and fall 2021 tore through the area; the 2022 post calls the site completely burntSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  9. 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.

The Midget lookout stood on Midget Peak in the St. Joe National Forest, in Shoshone County, Idaho.1,2,3 The sources date its first structures to 1929, when a cabin and a platform tower stood on the peak's west point.1,2 Materials for an L-4 cab, a 14-by-14-foot prefabricated live-in cabin design, were on site from 1941, but the cab was never built.1,2,4

The sources disagree about when the lookout was abandoned. The Forest Fire Lookout Association gives 1958, while Idaho Fire Lookouts gives 1942.1,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts' September 2022 post says the platform tower was still standing as of 2019. It also says the Stateline Fire of summer and fall 2021 tore through the area and left the site completely burned.2

When the post's writers reached the site, they found the platform tower in ruins, along with rubbish from the 1930s and 1940s, including a grub plate, a coffee pot and a tobacco tin.2 They found no sign of the material meant for the cab that was never built.2 The hike turned out to be about 3.5 miles, not the 2 miles they had expected.2 The 2022 visit report is the only detailed account of the site after 2019, and none of the three sources says whether the public may go there now.1,2,3

  1. Midget Fire Lookout Tower, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.firelookout.com/id/midget.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Midget Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/midget-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Cabin Architecture, Keeping Watch, University of Idaho Library, https://cdil.lib.uidaho.edu/keeping-watch/about/cabin-architecture.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Midget Peak Lookout
Midget Peak 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: 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.