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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Pole Mountain Lookout

Pole Mountain lookout was a ground cabin: a log cabin in 1921, a cupola cabin listed in 1930, gone by 1955 in St. Joe National Forest.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1955; 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
Ground-level cabLog cabin in 1921, with a cupola cabin listed in 1930The design: Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1921
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.98018, −115.43107
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-pole-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.9 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. 1921 BuiltLog cabin, a quarter mile westSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1930 EventCupola cabin listed; the sources do not say whether it replaced the 1921 cabinSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1930 and 1955
  4. 1955 RemovedListed as gone; the sources give no causeSource: firelookout.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.

Pole Mountain Lookout was a cabin on the ground, not a tower.1,2 A log cabin is recorded a quarter mile west in 1921, and a cupola cabin in 1930.1,3 Firelookout.com calls it Pole Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, so searches may use that name.1

The site lies in Shoshone County, Idaho, within St. Joe National Forest, six miles southwest of Red Ives ranger station, at an elevation of 6,601 feet.1 Its patrol point, three miles to the south-southeast, is also listed.4

The lookout was gone by 1955.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as hike-in, and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's register marks it as a ground site that is gone.4,2

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

  1. Pole Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/polemtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Idaho Lookouts (by Region), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id/id-rg/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Pole Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/pole-mountain-lookout/ (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: 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.