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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Old Man Point Lookout

Clearwater NF lookout: L-4 cab on a low tower from 1931, burned in the 1934 Pete King Fire and not replaced; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Burned in the 1934 Pete King Fire and not replaced

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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a log towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
10 ft (3.0 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.26966, −115.36580
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-old-man-point

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 its recorded height.

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 BuiltL-4 cab on a log tower; height disputed (10 ft in three sources, 20 ft in two)Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1931 First staffedRanger Roy Lewis set up a tent camp; Bill Dennison was lookoutSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1934 BurnedBurned in the Pete King Fire; Hartig dates it to August 17Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, fs.usda.gov
  4. 1934 DestroyedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
  5. 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.

Old Man Point was a lookout on the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho.1 In 1931 Ranger Roy Lewis first put the point into service, with a tent camp and Bill Dennison as lookout.2 That same year, carpenters Earnest Hartman and Harry Chenoweth, helped by Dennison, built a log tower and assembled a pre-cut L-4 cab on it.2

Sources do not agree on the tower's height. Three of them give 10 feet.3,1,2 Louis Hartig's 1981 history of the Lochsa Ranger District gives 20 feet,2 and a 2016 Clearwater National Forest list does too.4

The tower burned in the Pete King Fire in 1934 and was not replaced.3,2,4 Hartig, as quoted on Forest Lookouts, says the tower burned on August 17, a day or so after the lookout had been pulled to Lochsa Station to fight fires.2 A University of Idaho archive record dated August 18, 1934, is a first-person account of the Pete King Fire. It describes the CCC's fight to defend the camp and the Lochsa Ranger Station.5

Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site "Hike-In Burned."1 We found no source describing what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether it is open to visitors.

  1. Old Man Point Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/old-man-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Old Man Point, Forest Lookouts (Idaho), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/old-man-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Old Man Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/oldmanpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service (list compiled June 2016), https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Pete King Fire, Civilian Conservation Corps in Idaho Collection, University of Idaho Library Digital Collections, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/cccidaho/items/cccidaho1222.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Old Man Point Lookout
Old Man Point LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, height, 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, height, status, agency, 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.