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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Sisters Basin Lookout

Shoshone County, ID: a 1932 L-4 tower about eight miles southeast of Avery, listed as gone in 1953; no source describes what remains at the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as gone in 1953; no source gives a cause or describes the site today

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 labels the site hike-in and gives no route or access details

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1932
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.14336, −115.71178
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-sisters-basin

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. 1932 BuiltL-4 tower, per both pagesSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1932 and 1953
  3. 1953 AbandonedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
  4. 1953 EventListed as gone; the cause is not statedSources: 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.

Sisters Basin Lookout stood in the St. Joe National Forest, about eight miles southeast of Avery in Shoshone County, at 5,506 feet.1,2 Both pages list a 1932 L-4 tower.1,2

Lloyd V. Donally, who came to the St. Joe in 1927, recalls that most of the forest's lookouts and buildings were put up in two periods: in 1930 and 1931 by Forest Service crews, and in 1934 and 1935 by Civilian Conservation Corps workers.3 His account does not name this lookout.3

Both pages list the tower as gone in 1953, but neither says how it went.1,2

Do not confuse this site with the lookout on Middle Sister, about 10 miles southeast of Avery. There, a 35-foot tower replaced an earlier log cupola cabin in 1951 and was accidentally burned in 1953.4 The sources do not say whether the two losses are linked.1,2,4

Neither page describes what, if anything, remains at the site today. The Idaho Fire Lookouts page labels the spot hike-in, but it gives no route or access details.2

  1. Sisters Basin Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/sistersbasin.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Sisters Basin Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/sisters-basin-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Early Days in the Forest Service (Volume 4), Other St. Joe National Forest History, npshistory.com, https://npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/1/early-days/4/sec32.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Middle Sister Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, http://firelookout.com/id/middlesister.html (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: dates, 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.