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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Steamboat Peak Lookout

Coeur d'Alene NF lookout: a 40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab from 1934, destroyed in the 1950s. No source we read describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in the 1950s; no source we read describes what, if anything, remains.

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; the lookout is destroyed

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 40-foot pole towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.72346, −116.20595
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-steamboat-peak

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 4.4 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 EventCamp listed on the siteSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 Built40-foot pole tower with L-4 cab, about half a mile south of the southernmost pointSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1950
  4. 1950 DestroyedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (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.

The Steamboat Peak lookout stood on a peak in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, at 4,143 feet.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list places the peak in Shoshone County.3 A camp is listed on the site in 1930.1,4

In 1934 a pole tower 40 feet tall, with an L-4 cab on top, went up about half a mile south of the peak's southernmost point.1,2,4 The tower was destroyed in the 1950s, and the sources give only the decade, not a year.1,4

The Idaho Fire Lookouts site lists the peak as a hike-in site, with the lookout destroyed.2

None of the sources I read describes what remains at the site today, or whether the ground is open to the public.1,2,4 Since the tower is gone, there is no lookout to climb.2

  1. Steamboat Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/steamboatpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Steamboat Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/steamboat-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.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.