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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Nelson Peak Lookout

Shoshone County peak with a 1920s log cabin, a 1935 pole platform and a 1939 L-4 tower, all destroyed by 1969; no staffing history given.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Both main pages say destroyed in 1969. Firelookout.com says ruins of the west-summit platform were still there in the 1980s.

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 tags it Hike-In.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1920
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.27155, −115.71380 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-nelson-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 4.4 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. 1920 BuiltLog cabin with cupola. The sources give only the 1920s, so 1920 marks the start of that decade.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1920 and 1935
  3. 1935 Built48-foot pole platform on the west summit. Firelookout.com says its ruins were still there in the 1980s.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1939 BuiltL-4 tower on the east summit.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. No record between 1939 and 1969
  6. 1969 DestroyedBoth main pages date the destruction to 1969.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  7. 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.

Nelson Peak rises to 5,968 feet in Shoshone County, Idaho, and sits about four miles east-northeast of Avery.1,2

The peak lies within the St. Joe National Forest.1,2

The first structure was a log cabin with a cupola, which the sources date only to the 1920s.1,2 In 1935 a 48-foot pole platform went up on the west summit.1,2 In 1939 an L-4 tower was built on the east summit.1,2 A patrol point lay 1.5 miles to the northwest.1,2

Both pages say the tower was destroyed in 1969.1,2 Firelookout.com says the ruins of the west-summit platform were still there in the 1980s.1

No source describes what remains of the site today, and none says whether it is open to visitors.1,2,3 The association's list marks the lookout gone.3 Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site Hike-In, which describes how it is reached, not whether it is open.2

  1. Nelson Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/nelsonpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Nelson Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/nelson-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Nelson Peak Lookout
Nelson Peak 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 820 m.

    • FFLA: 47.27155, −115.71380
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 47.27187, −115.72460

    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: 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
  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.