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Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho

Plowboy Mountain

Kaniksu NF lookout 10 miles north of Nordman, Idaho: pole platform tower in the 1920s, 50-foot L-4 tower in 1935, destroyed 1965; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1965 per the sources; no source describes what, if anything, 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 lists the site as hike-in; no trail or access rules described

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-foot pole tower with L-4 cab (1935), preceded by a pole platform tower with tent camp (1920s) and an L-4 cab added in 1930The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1920
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Bonner County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.77094, −116.91133 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-plowboy-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 its recorded height.

Downloads about 4.5 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. 1920 BuiltPole platform tower with tent camp; sources date it only to the 1920sSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1930 AlteredL-4 cab added for living quartersSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1932 EventUniversity of Idaho photograph of the lookout, dated 1932 as an approximate dateSource: lib.uidaho.edu
  4. 1933 StaffedRudy Benson, per Idaho Fire Lookouts citing the Fire Lookout MuseumSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 1935 Built50-foot pole tower with L-4 cab on the easternmost point; patrol point two miles westSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1944 StaffedRobert L. McVey, 1944-1947, per the former Forest Fire Lookout RegistrySource: idahofirelookouts.com
  7. No record between 1944 and 1965
  8. 1965 DestroyedSite destroyedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  9. 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.

Plowboy Mountain sits about ten miles north of Nordman in Bonner County, Idaho, on the Kaniksu National Forest. The site is listed at 4,877 feet.1,2

Development began in the 1920s with a pole platform tower and a tent camp.1,3 Living quarters came in 1930, in the form of an L-4 cab.1,3 In 1935 the site got a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, on the eastern-most point of the mountain, and the sources also mention a patrol point two miles to the west.1,2,3

The Idaho Fire Lookouts site names two watchers.2 Rudy Benson is listed for 1933, citing the Fire Lookout Museum, and Robert L. McVey for 1944 to 1947, citing the former Forest Fire Lookout Registry.2 A University of Idaho photograph of the lookout is dated 1932, and the library marks that date as approximate.4

Three sources date the site's destruction to 1965.1,2,3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as gone.5

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today. The Idaho Fire Lookouts page classes the site as hike-in, but it gives no trail or access rules, and no source says whether visitors may go there now.2

  1. Plowboy Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/plowboymtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Plowboy Mountain, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/plowboy-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Plowboy Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/plowboy-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Plowboy Lookout on Plowboy Mountain, University of Idaho Library, Priest Lake Historical Photograph Collection, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/priestlake/items/priestlake183.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Plowboy Mountain
Plowboy MountainPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the location by 2.8 km (1.7 mi).

    • FFLA: 48.77094, −116.91133
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 48.77131, −116.94912

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

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, 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.