FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Mount Harrington

Also known as Harrington Mountain Lookout

Bitterroot NF hike-in lookout: a c.1930 60-ft pole tower, then a 40-ft L-4 tower by 1940; sites give 1955 destroyed or 1956 torn down. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1955 per firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts; Forest Lookouts says torn down in 1956 with usable parts salvaged

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, per Idaho Fire Lookouts

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower60-ft pole tower with 7x7 cab (c.1930), then 40-ft pole tower with L-4 cab (1940)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Bitterroot National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.53533, −114.92969
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-mount-harrington

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 3.7 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. 1930 BuiltFirst tower: 60-ft pole tower with 7x7 cab; firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts give 1930, Forest Lookouts gives c.1930Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1940 Replaced by a new structure40-ft pole tower with L-4 cab appears in 1940; the sources do not say what happened to the first towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1940 and 1955
  4. 1955 DestroyedListed as destroyed by firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts; no cause givenSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 1956 RemovedForest Lookouts says the tower was torn down and usable parts salvagedSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 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.

Mount Harrington is in the Bitterroot National Forest, and the Idaho Fire Lookouts site gives the summit an elevation of 8,186 feet.1 The first lookout went up around 1930: a 60-foot pole tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab.2,1,3 The sites date that first tower to 1930, or to around that year.2,1,3 By 1940 the summit tower stood 40 feet tall and carried an L-4 cab.2,1,3

A National Register study of the region's fire lookouts says the Salmon Mountain District once stationed men at Mount Harrington. Those men were told to serve as lookouts whenever they were not out fighting fire.4 The same study says that district came under Bitterroot National Forest administration in the late 1910s.4

The sources disagree about how the lookout ended. Two sites say it was destroyed in 1955.2,1 Forest Lookouts says it was taken down in 1956 and that some usable parts were recovered.3 None of them gives a cause. A Forest Fire Lookout Association list of Idaho sites marks the tower as gone.5

The sources we read do not describe what, if anything, is left on the summit today, or whether the site is open to visitors. The Idaho Fire Lookouts site calls the lookout a hike-in, so reaching it means walking.1 Anyone planning a trip should check with the Bitterroot National Forest first.

  1. Harrington Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/harrington-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Mt. Harrington Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/mtharrington.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Harrington Mountain, Forest Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/harrington-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. L-4 Fire Lookouts in the USFS Northern Region (Region 1), 1932-1967, National Register of Historic Places multiple property documentation form, Montana Historical Society (mhs.mt.gov), https://mhs.mt.gov/Shpo/docs/MPDs/MT_ID_FireLookoutsMPD.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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: design, height, agency, ownership, 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, 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.