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Fire lookout · Kootenai County, Idaho

Wall Peak Lookout

Kootenai County lookout: camp 1931, 30-foot pole L-4 tower 1933; now gone, with footings photographed. The end date is disputed (1947 or removal after a 1953 sale offer).

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower gone; a visitor's page captions four footings at the site

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?
Unknown
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts calls it a hike-in. One visitor came in on a road from Fourth of July Summit and climbed the southeast slope.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Kootenai County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.61384, −116.40406
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-wall-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 4.3 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 EventCamp recorded; no tower yetSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1933 Built30-foot pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  3. 1944 StaffedCharles Scott named as lookoutSource: willhiteweb.com
  4. 1946 StaffedArt Bandon named as lookoutSource: firelookout.com
  5. 1947 DestroyedIdaho Fire Lookouts date; Willhite Web gives 1947 as the last year. Disputed by the firelookout.com listing.Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, willhiteweb.com
  6. 1953 RemovedOffered for sale to the public in 1953 and removed; no removal date givenSource: firelookout.com
  7. 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.

Wall Peak is in Kootenai County, in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest.1,2 The Willhite Web page calls it a large, long mountain that lies north of Interstate 90, stretching from Fourth of July Summit toward Cataldo.3

A camp is recorded there in 1931.2 In 1933 a 30-foot pole tower, fitted with an L-4 cab, went up.2,3 The firelookout.com listing also names patrol platforms atop Swanson Mountain, a quarter mile and two miles east.2

Charles Scott is named as the lookout in 1944.3 The same listing adds Art Bandon for 1946.2

The sources disagree about how the tower ended. Idaho Fire Lookouts dates its destruction to 1947.4 The Willhite Web page gives 1947 as the last year of the lookout.3 The firelookout.com listing says instead that the tower was put up for public sale in 1953 and then removed.2

The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks the tower as gone.1 Photographs on the Willhite Web page are captioned as four footings.3 Its author came in on a road from Fourth of July Summit. Gravel roads reach a point just under the summit on the south side, and from the road's highpoint the route climbs the southeast slope.3 Idaho Fire Lookouts calls the site a hike-in.4 No source we read says whether the site is open to visitors now.1,2,3,4

  1. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Wall Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/wallpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Wall Peak Lookout Idaho, Willhite Web, https://willhiteweb.com/idaho_lookouts/wall_peak/fourth_of_july_summit_068.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Wall Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/wall-peak-lookout/ (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.