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Fire lookout · Benewah/ Latah County, Idaho

Mineral Mountain Lookout

Mineral Mountain, Idaho: 40-ft wooden tower (1935), 52-ft steel tower (1966), removed by 1981; footings and a picnic site remain inside McCroskey State Park.

Ruins: Only footings or remains are left. Tower removed by 1981; footings remain at the summit picnic site (WillhiteWeb, 2024)

Visit & stay

Ruins: footings or remains only. There is no structure to climb or rent.

Access

Open to the public. Inside McCroskey State Park, a public recreation area; a spur road from Skyline Drive reaches the summit

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Park where the spur road leaves Skyline Drive, then walk about one mile to the summit

Facts

Status
Ruins
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor MC-40, 52 ft steel tower (1966), after a 40 ft wooden tower with L-4 cab (1935)Cab: L-4; tower: Aermotor
Built of
SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1935
Height
52 ft (15.8 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest / Idaho Department of Lands
Land
Unknown
Location
Benewah/ Latah County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.06677, −116.88320
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-mineral-mountain

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. 1935 Built40 ft wooden tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1935 and 1961
  3. 1961 StaffedStaff entry: Bert WatkinsSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1966 Replaced by a new structure52 ft steel Aermotor MC-40 with ground cabin, replacing an older wooden 4-L lookoutSources: firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1970 StaffedStaff entry named only as BeckerSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  6. 1981 RemovedRemoved or gone by 1981Sources: firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  7. No record between 1981 and 1999
  8. 1999 AbandonedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
  9. TodayRuinsOnly footings or remains are 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.

Mineral Mountain stands about 10 miles north of Potlatch, Idaho.1 The oldest tower the sources list there was a 40-foot wooden one, dated to 1935.1,2 In 1966 a steel tower went up there.1,3 The Forest Lookouts site, which cites a state forester's report, says the steel tower replaced an older wooden lookout of the 4-L type.3 Sources describe the steel tower as 52 feet tall and an Aermotor MC-40.1,2,3 WillhiteWeb adds that it had a ground cabin below.2

The Idaho Fire Lookouts site lists two known staff entries: Bert Watkins for 1961, and a staffer named only as Becker for 1970.4

Firelookout.com lists the tower as gone in 1981, and the Idaho Fire Lookouts site lists it as removed or gone that year.1,4 WillhiteWeb says both the wooden and the steel towers were gone by then.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list also marks the site as a gone tower.5

Rocky slopes on Skyline Ridge, on Mineral Mountain, lie within McCroskey State Park, which Wikipedia describes as a public recreation area.6 The summit is now a picnic site, with footings still visible at the summit picnic table.2 WillhiteWeb says the road to the top seemed to be overgrowing as of 2024, though it still goes to the summit.2 WillhiteWeb also reports names dated 1940 on the footings, and says that conflicts with the recorded history.2

To visit, park at the pass where the spur road leaves Skyline Drive. Any vehicle can reach that spot, and the summit is one mile of walking from there.2

  1. Mineral Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/mineralmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Mineral Mountain Lookout Site, WillhiteWeb.com, https://willhiteweb.com/idaho_lookouts/mineral_mountain/tower_051.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Mineral Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/mineral-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Mineral Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/mineral-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  6. McCroskey State Park, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCroskey_State_Park (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: what it is built of, design, height, agency, 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, status, agency, access, 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

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