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Fire lookout · Benewah County, Idaho

Peterson Point Lookout

L-4 tower built on Peterson Point in St. Joe National Forest in 1938 and destroyed in 1954; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1954; no source describes 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?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts classes the site as hike-in; no source describes the site today or whether visitors may go there

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1938
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Benewah County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.17538, −116.55230
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-peterson-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 4.0 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. 1938 BuiltL-4 towerSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1938 and 1954
  3. 1954 DestroyedDestroyedSources: 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.

Peterson Point Lookout stood in St. Joe National Forest, nine miles south of St. Maries in Benewah County, at an elevation of 4,161 feet.1 An L-4 tower went up on the site in 1938.1,2 It was destroyed in 1954.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts and firelookout.com agree on both dates.1,2

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's regional register gives its coordinates as 47.17538 north and 116.55230 west, and it marks the tower as gone.3 Firelookout.com also lists a different Peterson Point, a camp in the Nez Perce National Forest, 21 miles east-southeast of Kooskia, that was abandoned in 1941, so the two should not be confused.4

No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether visitors may go there.

  1. Peterson Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/petersonpoint271.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Peterson Point Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/peterson-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho Lookouts (by Region), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id/id-rg/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Peterson Point Fire Lookout, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/petersonpoint.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: 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.