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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Uranus Peak Lookout

Coeur d'Alene NF pole tower on Uranus Peak, Shoshone County: built 1931 with an L-4 cab, destroyed 1950. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1950. No source 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
Idaho Fire Lookouts classes the site as hike-in.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.71333, −116.02338
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-uranus-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 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. 1931 Built40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1935 StaffedLorenzo Lanter, listed under 1935 on the Idaho Fire Lookouts pageSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1937 StaffedErnest Milot, listed under 1937 on the same pageSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1938 EventCCC photo caption 'Our fire tower on Uranus Peak'; the record gives the date as approximateSource: lib.uidaho.edu
  5. 1950 DestroyedForest Lookouts gives c.1950Sources: 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.

The tower stood in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, on Uranus Peak in Shoshone County, Idaho.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association places the summit about 12 miles north-northeast of Kellogg.1 Two sources give its elevation as 4,977 feet.1,2

Built in 1931, it was a pole tower 40 feet high, with an L-4 cab.1,2,3

A photo in the University of Idaho's Civilian Conservation Corps collection shows four CCC men on a lookout tower.4 The caption on the back reads "Our fire tower on Uranus Peak."4 The record gives the date as approximately 1938.4

The Idaho Fire Lookouts page lists two known staff: Lorenzo Lanter under 1935, and Ernest Milot under 1937.2

Three sources date the tower's destruction to 1950, though Forest Lookouts writes it as c.1950.1,2,3 The association's list marks the site as gone.5

No source we found describes what, if anything, remains on the summit. Idaho Fire Lookouts classes the site as hike-in, the only access detail we found.2

  1. Uranus Peak Fire Lookout Tower, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.firelookout.com/id/uranuspeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Uranus Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/uranus-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Shoshone County, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. CCC Men atop a Lookout Tower, Civilian Conservation Corps in Idaho Collection, University of Idaho Library, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/cccidaho/items/cccidaho588.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. 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.