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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Suburban Peak Lookout

Crow's nest in 1931, a 50-foot pole L-4 tower about 1934, gone by 1952; no source describes what remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1952; no source describes 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
Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site hike-in; no source describes access today

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower1931 crow's nest; about 1934 50-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.81161, −116.13685
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-suburban-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 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

  1. 1931 BuiltCrow's nest recorded on the peakSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 Built50-foot pole tower with L-4 cab (about 1934)Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1950
  4. 1950 AbandonedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
  5. 1952 DestroyedListed as gone by 1952; Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site Gone / Destroyed; no source gives the causeSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 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.

Suburban Peak rises to 4,402 feet in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, about 18 miles north of Kellogg in Shoshone County.1,2 The Shoshone County list places it at 52N-3E-31.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list gives its coordinates as 47.81161 north and 116.13685 west.4

A crow's nest was recorded on the peak in 1931.1,2,3 Around 1934, a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab followed.1,2,3

The tower was gone by 1952, according to three sources.1,2,3 Idaho Fire Lookouts files the site as "Gone / Destroyed," and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks it as gone.2,4

No source describes what remains at the site today, or whether it is open to visitors. Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site as hike-in.2

  1. Suburban Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/suburbanpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Suburban Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/suburban-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts, idaholookouts.weebly.com, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts, 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. 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.