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Fire lookout · Latah County, Idaho

Moscow Mountain Lookout

Latah County twin-summit lookout: 1934 pole tower, 1935 steel tower moved in 1959 and removed in 1981; no source describes the site now.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The steel tower was removed in 1981 and moved to a private summer cabin; no source describes what remains on the summits.

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 tower40-foot round pole tower with an L-4 cab on the east summit (1934); a 74-foot steel Aermotor on the west summit (1935), moved to the east summit in 1959The designs: L-4, Aermotor
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest and Idaho Department of Lands
Land
Unknown
Location
Latah County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.80434, −116.83933 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-moscow-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 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. 1934 Built40-foot round pole tower with L-4 cab on the east summitSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1935 Built74-foot steel Aermotor tower on the west summitSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  3. No record between 1935 and 1951
  4. 1951 StaffedKendrick Gazette item: a couple named Stedman had just returned from the lookout station; role not statedSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1956 Condition assessmentState Forester Roger Guernsey said the lookout tower should be replacedSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1956 EventTelevision and microwave fire-detection demonstration planned from the lookout for a University of Idaho forestry conferenceSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1959 MovedSteel tower moved from the west summit to the east summit, replacing the 1934 pole towerSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  8. No record between 1959 and 1981
  9. 1981 RemovedSteel tower removed by a private party and moved to a summer cabin at the south end of Lake Coeur d'AleneSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  10. 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.

Moscow Mountain rises about eight miles northeast of Moscow, in Latah County, Idaho, to 4,721 feet.1 A University of Idaho photo record places the old tower at 46.805553, -116.840425.2 Two summits carried towers. The first went up in 1934 on the east summit: a 40-foot round pole tower with an L-4 cab.1,3 A 74-foot steel Aermotor followed on the west summit the next year.4 The site is listed under the St. Joe National Forest and the Idaho Department of Lands.1

A 1951 Kendrick Gazette item mentions a couple named Stedman who had just come back from the Moscow Mountain lookout station.3 In May 1956 a University of Idaho forestry conference planned a television and microwave demonstration of fire detection from the lookout.3 That August, State Forester Roger Guernsey said the tower should be replaced.3

The steel tower was moved to the east summit in 1959 to take the place of the old pole tower.1,3 In 1981 a private owner removed the tower and took it to a summer cabin on the southern end of Lake Coeur d'Alene.1,4,3

No source describes what remains on either summit today. Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site "Drive-Up Removed," though its page does not explain the label.4 Whether the site is open to the public is not stated in these sources.

  1. Moscow Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://www.firelookout.com/id/moscowmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. East Moscow Mountain Lookout tower, Franklin Raney Photograph Collection, University of Idaho Library, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/raney/items/raney32.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Moscow Mountain (East), Forest Lookouts of Idaho, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/moscow-mountain-east.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Moscow Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/moscow-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Moscow Mountain Lookout
Moscow Mountain LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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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 2.2 km (1.4 mi).

    • FFLA: 46.80434, −116.83933
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 46.80350, −116.86877

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

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, 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.