FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho

Smith Mountain Lookout

Smith Mountain, in Bonner County near the Montana line, had a 1930 frame cabin, a 1934 pole tower and a 1965 concrete-block cab, sold and moved in 1975.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The cab was sold in 1975 and moved; an onX Offroad trail listing says the route ends at the remains of a lookout.

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
Trail
onX Offroad lists a 13-mile Smith Mountain route that ends at the remains of a lookout west of Troy, Montana.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Two-story buildingTwo-story concrete-block base with R-6 cab (1965); 10-foot pole tower with L-4 cab (1934)The designs: L-4, R-6
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1930
Height
10 ft (3.0 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kootenai National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Bonner County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.41525, −116.10430
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-smith-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 its recorded height.

Downloads about 3.7 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. 1930 BuiltA 10-by-10-foot frame cabin was built.Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 BuiltA 10-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab was built.Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1964
  4. 1964 RemovedThe 1934 pole tower was sold for $2.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 1965 BuiltA two-story concrete-block lookout with an R-6 cab was built.Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1966 EventA July 6, 1966 newspaper item said Ernest Palin, a North Carolina student, would be the first Black lookout in the district at Smith Mountain. It describes a plan; it does not record that he served.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1975 MovedThe cab was sold for $211 in 1975; Rex's page says the structure was sold and moved.Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  8. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Smith Mountain sits in Bonner County, Idaho, at an elevation of about 6,510 feet.1,2 The sources do not agree on exactly where it stands. FireLookout.com places it about 15 miles northeast of Hope.1 A January 1967 item from the Sandpoint News Bulletin, reprinted on Rex's Fire Lookout Page, puts it 10 miles south of Troy, Montana, on the Idaho side of the state line, between two forks of Callahan Creek.3 An onX Offroad trail listing describes the route as ending west of Troy.4

A 10-by-10-foot frame cabin went up on the mountain in 1930. A 10-foot pole tower, fitted with an L-4 cab, followed in 1934. Then in 1965 a two-story concrete-block building was put up with an R-6 cab on top.1,3

In July 1966 the Daily Inter Lake reported that Ernest Palin, a North Carolina student, would be the first Black lookout in the district, at Smith Mountain, and would work there until the snow-packed road opened.3

The cab sold for $211 in 1975, and Rex's page records the structure as sold and moved. FireLookout.com lists the site as gone from 1975.1,3

A July 1975 bid notice from the Kootenai National Forest offered the Smith Mountain cabin on the Troy Ranger District, describing it as built of wood on a cement-block foundation.3 That conflicts with the 1965 entry, which calls the lookout concrete block.1,3 Idaho Fire Lookouts places the site in the Kaniksu National Forest rather than the Kootenai.2

Only the onX Offroad listing describes anything left: it says the trail ends at the remains of a USFS fire lookout.4 The same page carries user status reports that disagree. One dated September 20, 2026 marks the trail Open, and one dated May 17, 2025 marks it Obstructed by downed trees.4 Those are user reports, not official notices, and none of the sources says exactly what survives.

  1. Smith Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, FireLookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/smithmtn235.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Smith Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/smith-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Smith Mountain - Forest Lookouts, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/smith-mountain1.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Smith Mountain, Idaho, onX Offroad, https://www.onxmaps.com/offroad/trails/us/idaho/smith-mountain-g8zl97vpkz1w (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, height, 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, 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.