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Fire lookout · Lemhi County, Idaho

Sheephorn Mountain Lookout

Sheephorn Mountain Lookout in Lemhi County began as a 1933 wooden cab; its two-story flat cab dates to 1965, and it was registered on the NHLR in 2020.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. Forest Service encourages visitors to hike the peaks, but says nothing about entering the cab. Firelookout.com says it is on the Recreation Rental program; no current listing was found, so that is unverified.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Staffing
Not staffed (as of undated)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Two-story buildingTwo-story Region 6 flat cab; 1965 newspaper describes a cinderblock lower section with a wood upperThe design: R-6
Built of
Not recorded
Height
9 ft (2.7 m)
Elevation
8,164 ft (2,488 m)
Agency
US Forest Service - Salmon-Challis National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lemhi County, Idaho
Coordinates
44.88252, −114.09117
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-sheephorn-mountain

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1933 Built9x9-foot wooden cab, the first lookout on the site.Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1935 StaffedNewspaper item says a man who had come back from the Hat Creek fire went to the lookout to be on duty for the summer.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1935 and 1965
  4. 1965 BuiltRegion 6 flat cab replaced the 1933 cab; forest crews worked from August 1 with a November 1 target. NHLR lists 1965 as the build year.Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 1967 EventPost-Register reported the site was to be withdrawn as an administrative site to protect the new lookout building.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1967 and 2020
  7. 2020 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on the National Historic Lookout Register, October 2, 2020.Source: nhlr.org
  8. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Sheephorn Mountain Lookout sits atop Sheephorn Mountain in Lemhi County, Idaho, about 22 miles south-southwest of Salmon, in the Salmon-Challis National Forest.1,2 A lookout has stood on the mountain since 1933, when a 9-by-9-foot wooden cab went up.2,3 The tower that stands now dates to 1965, when a Region 6 flat cab replaced that first cab.2,1

An October 1965 Recorder Herald item describes the new building as two stories, with a cinderblock lower section and a wood upper section. It says the new lookout is replacing one abandoned years earlier, and that forest crews began work on August 1, expecting to finish by November 1.3

Staffing records are thin. A July 1935 Recorder Herald item describes a man who had come back from the Hat Creek fire and then left for the lookout at Sheephorn peak, to stay on duty through the rest of the summer.3 Idaho Fire Lookouts says it does not yet have a documented staffing history for this tower.4

In March 1967 the Post-Register reported that the site would be withdrawn as an administrative site, to protect the lookout building that had been constructed there.3 The National Historic Lookout Register added Sheephorn Mountain on October 2, 2020.2

The Forest Service lists Sheephorn among several historic lookouts that remain unstaffed, and it encourages visitors to hike to the peaks.5 Firelookout.com says the tower is on the Recreation Rental program, but the Forest Service page does not mention rentals and no current listing surfaced in search.1,5 Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site drive-up with an "Emergency Status" tag and does not explain the tag.4 Check with the Salmon-Challis National Forest before planning a visit, since the rental and entry status remain unclear.

  1. Sheephorn Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/sheephorn.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Sheephorn Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/sheephorn-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Sheephorn Mountain - Forest Lookouts, Idaho Lookouts (weebly), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/sheephorn-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Sheephorn Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/sheephorn-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  5. Fire Lookouts, Salmon-Challis National Forest, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r04/salmon-challis/recreation/discover-history/fire-lookouts (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Sheephorn Mountain Lookout - 2012
Sheephorn Mountain Lookout - 2012 (2012)Photo: Ron Kemnow, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Sheephorn Mtn. in 2005
Sheephorn Mtn. in 2005 (2005)Photo: Mike Roy, via firelookout.com · source

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Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the year it was built.

    • NHLR: 1965
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1933

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: height, photos, 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
  4. 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
  5. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) 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
  6. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, staffing, 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.