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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

North Butte Lookout

Shoshone County 10-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, built in 1932 in the St. Joe National Forest and destroyed in 1969; no source describes what remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1969; 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 tower10-foot pole tower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1932
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.03805, −115.80070
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-north-butte

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 4.2 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. 1932 Built10-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSource: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1932 and 1969
  3. 1969 DestroyedDestroyed in 1969Sources: 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.

North Butte had a 10-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, built in 1932.1 The firelookout.com page places it in the St. Joe National Forest, 13 miles south of Avery in Shoshone County, at 6,738 feet.1 Both pages give 1969 as the year the tower was destroyed.1,2

The Idaho Fire Lookouts page lists the site as a hike-in.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list places the tower at 47.03805, -115.80070 and marks it gone.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 St. Joe National Forest about access and conditions before going.

  1. North Butte Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/northbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. North Butte Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/north-butte-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.