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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Quarles Peak Lookout

Quarles Peak cupola cabin on St. Joe NF land near the Montana line; a 1919 ranger-station cabin came first, the summit cabin dates to 1924 and was destroyed in 1957.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1957; no source describes what remains on the summit

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as drive-up; no closure is described

Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabCupola cabin on the summit; log ranger-station cabin in the northeast saddle from 1919The design: Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1919
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.29914, −115.52934
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-quarles-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 4.3 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. 1919 BuiltLog cabin in the northeast saddle, the first structure, used as a ranger stationSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1919 EventPatrol headquarters employing a fifteen-man trail crew and seven smoke chasers in 1919-1920, per Idaho Fire Lookouts quoting Bert Russell's book; served as ranger station for 12 yearsSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1924 BuiltCupola cabin built on the summitSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1925 StaffedCharley Scribner named as ranger (not lookout), per Idaho Fire Lookouts quoting Bert Russell's bookSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  5. No record between 1925 and 1957
  6. 1957 DestroyedCupola cabin destroyedSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  7. 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.

Quarles Peak sits next to the Montana state line, about 13 miles east-northeast of Avery in Shoshone County, Idaho, within the St. Joe National Forest.1 The name honors a Coeur d'Alene assessor who held a prospect on the peak.2

The earliest building was a log cabin in the northeast saddle below the summit, built in 1919.1,2,3

The Idaho Fire Lookouts page's notes, which credit Bert Russell's book, say the station was a patrol headquarters with a crew of fifteen trail workers and seven smoke chasers in 1919-1920.2 The same notes say it operated as a ranger station for a dozen years.2

The cupola cabin on the summit went up in 1924.1,2,3 The Idaho Fire Lookouts page names "Blackie" Kimball among the earliest lookouts at the site, and identifies Charley Scribner as the ranger in 1925.2

The cupola cabin was destroyed in 1957.1,3

The Idaho Fire Lookouts page includes historic photos and a present-day comparison, but its text does not describe the present-day view.2 We found no written description of what remains on the summit now.

The same page lists the site as drive-up.2

  1. Quarles Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.firelookout.com/id/quarlespeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Quarles Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/quarles-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Quarles Peak, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/quarles-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Quarles Peak Lookout
Quarles Peak LookoutPhoto: 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: 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, access, 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

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