Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho
Mud Creek Lookout
Clearwater NF lookout 14 miles NE of Kooskia, Idaho: 100-ft steel Aermotor tower from about 1936, abandoned 1967, tower removed 1978; no description of the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1967; the tower came down in 1978
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
- Type
- Cab on a tower100-foot steel Aermotor tower, with a 130-foot crow's nest tree platform half a mile northwest (1932) and L-4 cab living quartersCab: L-4; tower: Aermotor
- Built of
- SteelGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1932
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Clearwater National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Idaho County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 46.23479, −115.70600 sources disagree
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-mud-creek
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 4.3 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
- 1932 Built130-foot crow's nest tree platform about half a mile northwest of the later towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- 1936 Built100-foot steel Aermotor tower, erected to replace an earlier tree observation pointSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- No record between 1936 and 1967
- 1967 AbandonedLookout site abandonedSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- 1978 RemovedTower came down; the Forest Service list gives the same yearSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
- 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.
The Mud Creek lookout stood about 14 miles northeast of Kooskia, in the Clearwater National Forest.1,2 The site sits at 4,517 feet, according to Idaho Fire Lookouts and the Forest Service list.3,4 Idaho Fire Lookouts files the site under drive-up access, although the tower is no longer there.3
The site was developed in 1932 with a 130-foot crow's nest tree platform, about half a mile northwest of the later tower.1,3 Around 1936 a 100-foot steel Aermotor tower went up to replace that earlier tree observation point.1,2,3 The site also held L-4 cab living quarters, and a second crow's nest stood about a mile to the southwest.1,3
The site was abandoned in 1967.1,2,3,4 The tower came down in 1978, a date that the Forest Service list also gives.1,4
No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether it is open to visitors.
- Mud Creek Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/mudcreek.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Mud Creek, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/mud-creek.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Mud Creek Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/mud-creek-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (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 1.4 km (0.8 mi).
- FFLA: 46.23479, −115.70600
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 46.22622, −115.71867
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: 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: what it is built of, 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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
- Clearwater National Forest Lookouts (USDA Forest Service) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Mud Creek on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Mud Creek Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Mud Creek on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.