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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Nezperce Peak

Bitterroot NF summit lookout in Idaho County: a 1918 tent camp, a log cupola cabin, destroyed in 1950. No source describes the summit today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1950. No source describes what remains.

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
Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site hike-in; the Selway-Bitterroot photo record places the peak in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabLog cabin with cupola (1930 per two sites); a 1922 photo shows a cabin under constructionThe design: Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1922
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Bitterroot National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.73160, −114.58575
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-nezperce-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 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. 1918 EventMap table erected on the summit, with a tent camp about half a mile below itSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1918 StaffedMabel Geenan, a Butte school teacher, acting as lookout the summer before a November 1918 newspaper reportSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1922 BuiltPhoto dated 1922-08-01 shows a lookout cabin under construction; conflicts with the 1930 dateSource: lib.uidaho.edu
  4. 1930 BuiltLog cupola cabin, per two sitesSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 1938 StaffedElvin Barkhoff returned to his work as a lookout, per the Ravalli RepublicanSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1950 DestroyedDestroyed 1950, per two sitesSources: 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.

Nez Perce Peak stood in Idaho County, about six miles northeast of Magruder Ranger Station, in the Bitterroot National Forest, at 7,531 feet.1,2

In 1918 a map table went up on the summit, with a tent camp about half a mile below it near a spring.3 That summer a Butte school teacher, Mabel Geenan, served as the lookout. A November 1918 article in the Centralia Daily Chronicle, quoted on Forest Lookouts, says she freed a man for war work by doing that job, and that a telephone linked her with the district's other lookout stations.3

A photograph in the University of Idaho's Selway-Bitterroot collection, dated August 1, 1922, shows a cabin being built on the peak.4 Two sites date a log cabin with a cupola to 1930.1,2 The dates do not line up, and the sources do not settle which one is right.

In 1938 the Ravalli Republican reported that Elvin Barkhoff had returned to lookout duty on Nez Perce mountain.3

Both sites record the cabin as destroyed in 1950.1,2

No source described for this story says what, if anything, remains on the summit today. Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site hike-in,2 and the photo record places the peak in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.4

  1. Nez Perce Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/nezpercepeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Nez Perce Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/nez-perce-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Nezperce Peak, Forest Lookouts (Ron Kemnow), quoting the Centralia Daily Chronicle (November 9, 1918) and the Ravalli Republican (August 25, 1938), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/nezperce-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Lookout cabin under construction on Nez Perce Peak, The Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness History Project, University of Idaho Library Digital Collections, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/sbw/items/sbw066.html (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: 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: 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, 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.