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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Nipple Mountain Lookout

Idaho County 40-foot pole tower with an L-6 cab, built in 1931 in the Nez Perce National Forest and destroyed in 1968; no source describes what remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1968; no source describes what 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?
Unknown
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in; no source describes a trail or current access.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot pole tower with an L-6 cab and an accompanying cabin for living quartersThe design: L-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Nez Perce National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.71505, −115.60762
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-nipple-mountain

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 4.1 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. 1931 Built40-foot pole tower with L-6 cab and cabin living quartersSource: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1931 and 1968
  3. 1968 DestroyedTower and cabin destroyed in 1968Sources: 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.

Nipple Mountain had a 40-foot pole tower with an L-6 cab and an accompanying cabin for living quarters, built in 1931.1 It sat in the Nez Perce National Forest, 11 miles southwest of Elk City, in Idaho County, at 7,098 feet.1,2

The lookout was destroyed in 1968.1,3 The Idaho Fire Lookouts page gives the same destruction year and lists the site as a hike-in.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list also marks the tower as gone.4 Photographs on the Idaho page are courtesy of The Fire Lookout Museum.3

We found no source that describes what remains at the site today, or whether the public may visit. Anyone planning a trip should ask the Nez Perce National Forest about access first.

  1. Nipple Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/nipplemtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Nipple Mountain Lookout, Idaho Cities and Towns Collection, University of Idaho Library, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/cities/items/cities1027.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Nipple Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/nipple-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Nipple Mountain Lookout
Nipple Mountain LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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.