Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho
Monumental Butte
St. Joe NF butte lookout in Shoshone County: cab built 1922, cupola cabin 1925, destroyed in 1969; now gone, and no source describes the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1969; no source describes what remains on the butte
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?
- No, you have to hike
- Trail
- Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site 'Hike-In Destroyed'
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Ground-level cab13 x 13 ft cab with open roof platform (1922); cupola cabin on the south butte (1925)The design: Cupola house
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1919
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- St. Joe National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Shoshone County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 47.02030, −115.80799 sources disagree
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-monumental-butte
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 3.9 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
- 1919 BuiltFirst lookout cabin, a log cabin, established about 1919Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1919 First staffedFred Dugan listed as staffSource: idahofirelookouts.com
- 1921 BurnedLog cabin burnedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1922 Built13 x 13 ft cab with open roof platform, atop the north butteSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1924 DestroyedCab destroyed by lightningSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1925 Replaced by a new structureCupola cabin on the south butteSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1933 EventJuly 1933 lightning surged in over the telephone line and shattered the cabin; lookout man unhurt (Spokesman-Review report, quoted second-hand)Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1940 StaffedLester A. Spurgeon listed for 1940-1941; moved about halfway through the seasonSource: idahofirelookouts.com
- No record between 1940 and 1969
- 1969 DestroyedDestroyedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Monumental Butte is a former lookout site on the St. Joe National Forest in Shoshone County, Idaho.1,2 The butte rises to 6,994 feet.3 The first lookout there was a log cabin, put up around 1919, and it burned in 1921.1,3 The next cab, a 13-by-13-foot structure with an open roof platform, stood on the north butte from 1922.1
Lightning destroyed that cab in 1924. The following year a cupola cabin went up on the south butte.1,3 Idaho Fire Lookouts lists Fred Dugan as staff in 1919 and 1924, and Lester A. Spurgeon for 1940 to 1941, noting that Spurgeon moved about halfway through the season.3
Lightning struck again in July 1933. According to a Spokesman-Review report quoted on a Shoshone County lookout history page, the strike surged in over the telephone line and shattered the cabin, but the lookout man was not hurt.4
A reminiscence in volume four of Early Days in the Forest Service calls the lookout "Monumental Buttes" and says Pete Snyder held it for many years.5 The same volume recounts a night in 1926 when a lookout called Monumental counted 240 fires from its station. That account mentions Priest River and Nordman, so we cannot be sure it refers to this butte.5
The cupola cabin was destroyed in 1969.1,3 We found no source that describes what, if anything, remains on the butte today. The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the lookout as gone,2 and Idaho Fire Lookouts marks the site "Hike-In Destroyed."3
- Monumental Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/monumentalbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Monumental Butte, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/monumental-butte/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts, Idaho Lookouts (weebly), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Early Days in the Forest Service, Volume 4, Forest History Society, https://www.foresthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/EARLY-DAYS-IN-THE-FOREST-SERVICE-vol4.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
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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 the location by 710 m.
- FFLA: 47.02030, −115.80799
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 47.02658, −115.80627
The map uses the position from FFLA.
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) Gave us: dates, 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
- 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
- Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts (Idaho Lookouts (weebly)) (opens another site)
- Early Days in the Forest Service, Volume 4 (Forest History Society) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Monumental Butte on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Monumental Butte on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.