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Fire lookout · Valley County, Idaho

Split Creek Point Lookout

Payette NF lookout built in 1933 near McCall, Idaho; tower taken down in 2008, the cab moved to a McCall museum, and the residence cabin left at the site.

The lookout that stood here was moved. Now at the Cent. ID Hist. Museum – Cab

Moved: The structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from. The tower was taken down in 2008. The cab is at the McCall museum; the residence cabin remains at the original site, per the Register.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Open to the public. The cab may be toured at the Central Idaho Historical Museum in McCall; no source describes access to the original site

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Moved
Type
Cab on a tower72-foot open steel tower with an Aermotor 7x7 cab, plus a log residence cabinThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Payette National Forest (cooperator); the Central Idaho Historical Museum administers the register entry
Land
Unknown
Location
Valley County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.10788, −115.77487
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-split-creek-point-2

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.

The structure was moved. This view is from the position Firefinder shows for this record, at 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 BuiltLookout cab on a 72-foot steel tower, plus a log residence cabinSources: firelookout.com, nhlr.org, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1933 and 2008
  3. 2008 RemovedTower disassembled; residence cabin left at the original siteSources: firelookout.com, nhlr.org, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 2020 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered October 3, 2020Sources: nhlr.org, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. Date unknown MovedThe lookout was moved to the Cent. ID Hist. Museum – Cab.Source: FFLA
  6. TodayMovedThe structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from.

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.

Split Creek Point Lookout stood in the Payette National Forest, 21 miles northeast of McCall, Idaho.1 The lookout and its residence cabin were built in 1933.2,3 The lookout's cab was a 7-by-7 Aermotor design set atop a 72-foot open steel tower with X-brace framing.2

A firelookout.com listing says the lookout was abandoned for several decades before its tower came down.1 The Register and Idaho Fire Lookouts both date the tower's disassembly to 2008.2,3

The residence cabin stayed at the original site.2 The lookout cab went to the Central Idaho Historical Museum in McCall, where visitors may tour it.2,3 Idaho Fire Lookouts adds that the tower itself was sold to a private buyer and moved to Lewiston.3 The firelookout.com listing describes the museum move as a hope.1

The sources do not fully agree. A McCall visitor listing for the museum names an Aeromotor cab from Sloan Point and does not mention a Split Creek cab.4 Ask the museum to confirm that it has this cab before you visit.

Today the Register says the residence cabin remains at the original site.2 No source we read says whether that site is open to the public, or what else is there today.

  1. Split Creek Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/splitcreek.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Split Creek Point Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/split-creek-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Split Creek Point Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/split-creek-point-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. McCall History & Museums: Central Idaho Historical Museum, allmccall.com, https://www.allmccall.com/history_museums/central_idaho_historical_museum.php (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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, 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.