FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Steamboat Peak Lookout

Idaho County, ID 12-foot L-4 tower built 1931 and destroyed 1966 per two sites; Forest Lookouts says removed; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1966 per two sites; Forest Lookouts lists it as removed, without a date

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
Listed as a hike-in site

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower12-foot L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
12 ft (3.7 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Payette National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.21270, −115.75495
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-steamboat-peak-2

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 3.9 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. 1925 StaffedA lookout family occupied the Steamboat station when lightning charged the ground; from a newspaper item quoted by Forest Lookouts. The sources do not say whether this station was the same site as the 1931 towerSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1931 Built12-foot tower with L-4 cabSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1931 and 1966
  4. 1966 DestroyedForest Lookouts lists it as removed, without a dateSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.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.

Steamboat Peak is in Idaho County, in the Payette National Forest.1,2 The lookout stood about five miles southwest of Warren, at 8,530 feet.1

A 12-foot tower with an L-4 cab went up in 1931.2,1,3

Forest Lookouts quotes a December 14, 1925 newspaper item, from the Ogden Standard-Examiner, about a lookout family at the Steamboat station.3 Lightning electrified the ground around the station, and the lookout, his wife and two small children had to move into a tent.3 The page files this item under Steamboat Peak.3 The sources do not say whether that station was the same site as the 1931 tower.

Idaho Fire Lookouts and firelookout.com both say the tower was destroyed in 1966.2,1 Forest Lookouts lists the tower as removed, without a date.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks it gone.4

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today. Idaho Fire Lookouts classes the site as a hike-in.2

  1. Steamboat Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/steamboatpeak309.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Steamboat Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/steamboat-peak-lookout-2/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Steamboat Peak, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/steamboat-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho fire lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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, height, 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.