Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho
Smith Point Lookout
100-foot pole L-6 tower with a ground cabin, built about 1934 in Clearwater Co., ID; abandoned in the 1940s, tower fell in the 1950s; no source describes the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in the 1940s (Forest Service list says 1941). The tower fell down in the 1950s. No source describes what remains on the summit 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
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower100-foot pole L-6 tower with a cab, plus a ground cabin for living quartersThe design: L-6
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1934
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Unknown
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Clearwater County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 46.89895, −115.73933
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-smith-point
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 4.1 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
- 1934 Built100-foot pole tower with an L-6 cab, plus a ground cabin for living quartersSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
- 1941 AbandonedForest Service list gives 1941; firelookout.com, Idaho Fire Lookouts and the county list say the 1940sSource: fs.usda.gov
- 1950 EventTower fell down during the 1950s (decade only; no year given)Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Smith Point's lookout was a 100-foot pole tower with an L-6 cab on top, plus a ground cabin for living quarters 1,2. It went up around 1934, and every source that dates it agrees on that year 1,3,4,2. The site lay about nine miles west-northwest of Canyon R.S. 1.
The Forest Service's Clearwater list gives 1941 as the year the lookout was abandoned 4. The other sources say the 1940s 1,3,2. The tower fell down in the 1950s 1,3,4.
The sources do not agree on who ran the site. Firelookout.com names the Clearwater-Potlatch Timber Protective Association 1. The county list gives the Clearwater Timber Protective Association 2. Idaho Fire Lookouts gives the Clearwater National Forest as the land 3.
No source describes what, if anything, is left on the summit today. Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site as hike-in 3. None of the sources says whether the land is open to visitors, so check with the managing agency before going.
- Smith Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/smithpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Clearwater County - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/clearwater-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Smith Point Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/smith-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, 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
- Clearwater National Forest Lookouts (USDA Forest Service) (opens another site)
- Clearwater County - Forest Lookouts (Forest Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com)) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Smith Point on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Smith Point Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.