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Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

Stocking Meadows Lookout

Clearwater County, ID lookout: 1914 crow's nest, 1920 platform, 1934 50-ft L-4 tower; destroyed 1972 per two sites (one says removed); site today not described.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed 1972 per firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts; Forest Lookouts lists it as Removed, undated

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?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site Drive-Up; no source describes what remains there now

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-foot tower with L-4 cab (1934); earlier crow's nest with log cabin (1914) and 45-foot platform (1920)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1914
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater Timber Protective Association
Land
Unknown
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.93293, −115.90768
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-stocking-meadows

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. 1913 EventClearwater TPA annual report: cost $143.95 for 4.5 miles of work to the place known as Stocking Meadows LookoutSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1914 BuiltCrow's nest with log cabin, per firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts; the 1913 report already names the site, so the start date is disputedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1920 Built45-foot platformSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1925 StaffedOnly staff entry found; identified only as Brad, in a Forest Fire Lookout Museum photoSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 1934 Built50-foot tower with L-4 cab; Forest Lookouts dates it to the 1930s and credits Civilian Conservation Corps laborSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  6. No record between 1934 and 1972
  7. 1972 DestroyedDestroyed, per firelookout.com and Idaho Fire LookoutsSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  8. 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.

Stocking Meadows Lookout stood in Clearwater County, Idaho, about 17 miles east-southeast of Clarkia, at an elevation of 4,590 feet.1 The Clearwater Timber Protective Association is listed as its agency.2

The earliest date we found is 1913.2 That year an association annual report gave a cost of $143.95 for four and a half miles of work running to the place "known as Stocking Meadows Lookout."2 Two lookout websites date the first structure to 1914, a crow's nest with a log cabin, so the sources do not agree on when the lookout began.1,2,3

Forest Lookouts lists a 45-foot platform in 1920.2 Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts date a 50-foot tower with an L-4 cab to 1934, while Forest Lookouts says it went up in the 1930s with Civilian Conservation Corps labor.1,2,3

The only staff entry we found is for 1925, and it names only Brad, in a photo from the Forest Fire Lookout Museum collection.3

Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts both say the tower was destroyed in 1972.1,3 Forest Lookouts lists it as "Removed," so the sources do not agree on how it ended.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list also marks it as gone.4

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site.3 The Idaho Fire Lookouts page tags it "Drive-Up," but it gives no current condition for the site.3

  1. Stocking Meadows Fire Lookout Tower, Fire Lookout, https://www.firelookout.com/id/stockingmeadows.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Stocking Meadows, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/stocking-meadows.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Stocking Meadows Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/stocking-meadows-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts (Alphabetical 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: 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, 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.