FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Boundary County, Idaho

Ruby Mountain

A 1935 pole tower with an L-6 cab near Eastport, abandoned in the 1950s. The index lists the tower as gone; a frame cabin may remain.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower listed as gone. A firelookout.com page says a frame cabin was still there; no source dates that.

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
Cab on a tower30-foot pole tower with an L-6 cabThe design: L-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Boundary County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.92019, −116.10939
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-ruby-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. 1933 StaffedHollice Aldridge; the Idaho Fire Lookouts page dates the staffing to 1933-1934Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1935 Built30-foot pole tower with an L-6 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1946 StaffedLloyd Hughest, per the Idaho Fire Lookouts page citing Fire Lookouts of the NorthwestSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1950 AbandonedSources say only 'the 1950s'; 1950 is the first year of that decade, not a dated recordSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.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.

Ruby Mountain stands about 6 miles southeast of Eastport, in Boundary County, Idaho, on the Kaniksu National Forest.1 Its lookout was a 30-foot pole tower topped by an L-6 cab, built in 1935.1,2

The earliest named lookout is Hollice Aldridge, whom the Idaho Fire Lookouts page dates to 1933 and 1934.1,2 The same page lists Lloyd Hughest as staffing the tower in 1946, citing the book Fire Lookouts of the Northwest.2

The tower was abandoned in the 1950s.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association index lists the tower as gone.3 The firelookout.com page also says a frame cabin was still there, but no source gives a date for that.1

A 2025 post from Boundary County historic sites describes a Ruby Cabin that overlooks Spruce Lake.4 The post calls it the first cabin used for fire detection in the county, and says it has survived several fire towers on the same site.4 The post does not name Ruby Mountain, so it is not certain that this is the same cabin as the frame cabin on the mountain.1,4 Planned work would secure the existing outhouse to the mountainside.4

The Idaho Fire Lookouts page tags the site as hike-in. No source says whether the site is open to visitors today.2

  1. Ruby Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/rubymtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Ruby Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/ruby-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho Lookouts (Alphabetical List), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Ruby Cabin, Boundary County historic sites, bchistoricplaces.org, https://www.bchistoricplaces.org/post/ruby-cabin (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. 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.