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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Polaris Peak

Coeur d'Alene NF lookout near Kellogg, Idaho: 30-foot pole L-4 tower built 1931, destroyed 1968; a visit found two footings and a tie-down; drive-in site.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1968; a visit found two footings and one tie-down still in place

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?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts classes the site as drive-in and reports that the writers drove all the way up; no current road conditions found

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.47986, −116.04068
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-polaris-peak

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 3.4 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 Built30-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 StaffedFred Kottkey, per Idaho Fire Lookouts citing the Wallace Press-TimesSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1936 EventLookout called in because of rain and cool weather, per a Spokane Chronicle item dated September 4, 1936, quoted by Forest LookoutsSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1938 StaffedRay Lamareaux, first name on the firelookout.com listSource: firelookout.com
  5. No record between 1938 and 1968
  6. 1968 DestroyedDestroyedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1971 StaffedGeorge Howard, per a Kellogg Evening News item cited by Idaho Fire Lookouts; three years after the 1968 destruction date, so the sources conflictSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  8. 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.

Polaris Peak is about five miles southeast of Kellogg, in Shoshone County, Idaho. It stands on the Coeur d'Alene National Forest at 5,585 feet.1,2

In 1931 a 30-foot pole tower topped by an L-4 cab went up on the peak.1,3

Firelookout.com lists watchers from 1938 to 1967. Many were married couples, such as Mr. and Mrs. Robert Stevens in 1948.1 The Idaho Fire Lookouts list starts earlier, with Fred Kottkey in 1934 and Walter Johnson in 1935, and runs on to George Howard in 1971.2 That 1971 date falls three years after the 1968 destruction date that all three pages give, so the Idaho list does not fit that timeline.1,2,3

A September 4, 1936 Spokane Chronicle item, quoted by the Forest Lookouts site, said Forest Service officials had recalled the lookout because wet, cool weather had lowered the fire danger.3

The lookout was destroyed in 1968.1,2,3

Writers for Idaho Fire Lookouts report that they could drive to the site, where two footings and one tie-down remain.2 Both footings sit below the summit and align with older photographs of the earlier L-4 tower.2 They describe the rest of the site as clear.2

The site is classed as drive-in.2 No source says whether the road or the site is open to visitors now. The peak lies in a national forest, so check with the Coeur d'Alene National Forest before going.1,2

  1. Polaris Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/polarispeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Polaris Peak, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/polaris-peak/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Polaris Peak, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/polaris-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Polaris Peak
Polaris PeakPhoto: 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: 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.