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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Needle Peak Lookout

L-4 tower on a St. Joe National Forest peak, dated 1935 and destroyed in 1957; one staff name listed with no dates.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Both main pages say destroyed in 1957. Neither describes remains at the site.

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?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts tags it Drive-Up.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.02446, −115.27593
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-needle-peak

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. 1935 BuiltL-4 tower, dated 1935 on both main pages.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1935 and 1957
  3. 1957 DestroyedBoth main pages date the destruction to 1957. Neither gives a cause.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 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.

The L-4 tower on Needle Peak dates to 1935, and the peak sits about four miles southeast of Red Ives R.S. in Shoshone County, Idaho.1,2

The peak lies within the St. Joe National Forest, and firelookout.com gives its elevation as 6,643 feet.1,2

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists one name under known staff, Paddy Mcintyre, with the credit 'Up The Swiftwater', and gives no dates.2

Both sources record the tower as destroyed in 1957.1,2 The two pages agree on both dates, so they do not conflict here.1,2

No source describes what remains at the site today, and none says whether it is open to the public.1,2,3 The association's list marks the tower gone.3 Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site Drive-Up, which describes how it is reached, not whether it is open today.2

  1. Needle Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/needlepeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Needle Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/needle-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. 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. 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.