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Fire lookout · Custer County, Idaho

Potaman Peak Lookout

Custer County, Idaho L-4 cab built 1938, abandoned about 1954 and dismantled in 1983; a climbing guide saw old lookout windows stacked below the summit.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Building dismantled in 1983; a climbing guide saw old lookout windows stacked just below the summit.

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
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1938
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Sawtooth National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Custer County, Idaho
Coordinates
44.22057, −114.39668
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-potaman-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.6 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 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1946 EventEmergency statusSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1954 AbandonedForest Service abandoned the site, lookout structure included (about 1954)Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1954 and 1983
  5. 1983 RemovedDeteriorated building dismantledSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 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.

Potaman Peak, in Custer County, Idaho, is listed at 9,376 feet and once held a fire lookout.1,2

The lookout was an L-4 cab, built in 1938.1,2,3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists its type as ground rather than tower.4 Most pages place the peak in the Sawtooth National Forest,2,3 but the firelookout.com page names the Challis National Forest instead.1

Two pages list the cab on emergency status in 1946.1,2

The Forest Lookouts page dates the Forest Service's exit from the site to about 1954, when the lookout itself was abandoned too. The building, by then deteriorated, was dismantled in 1983.3 The Association's list marks the site as gone.4

A climbing guide author who visited the summit, on a date the guide does not give, found a pile of old lookout windows just below the top.5 The guide calls the peak seldom visited and says the view is worth the effort of reaching the summit.5

Apart from those windows, we found no source that describes footings, a foundation or other remains at the site. We also found no source saying whether the summit is open to the public, so check with the Sawtooth or Challis National Forest office before you go.

  1. Potaman Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/potamanpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Potaman Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/potaman-peak/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Potaman Peak - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/potaman-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts (by Region), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id/id-rg/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Potaman Peak - IDAHO: A Climbing Guide, Idaho: A Climbing Guide, https://www.idahoaclimbingguide.com/bookupdates/potaman-peak/ (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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: what it is built of, design, 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, 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.