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Fire lookout · Boundary County, Idaho

White Mountain Lookout

Pole tower with an L-4 cab, built 1937 on the Kaniksu National Forest; abandoned after 1950 and destroyed in 1962, with debris reported on site.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1962. A visitor's photo on Idaho Fire Lookouts shows debris 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?
No, you have to hike

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-ft pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1937
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Boundary County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.52030, −116.53175
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-white-mountain

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 4.2 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. 1937 Built50-ft pole tower with L-4 cab, per Idaho Fire Lookouts and firelookout.com. Forest Lookouts' 1962 item says the CCC built the group of towers in the 1930s.Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1942 StaffedBobby Reed, per a Bonners Ferry Herald item quoted by Idaho Fire Lookouts and listed by firelookout.com.Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  3. 1950 AbandonedNot used or maintained since 1950, per the 1962 news item quoted by Forest Lookouts.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1962 BurnedA June 1962 Sandpoint News Bulletin item says the towers were being toppled and burned.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1962 DestroyedBoth lookout pages give 1962.Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.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.

White Mountain Lookout stood on the Kaniksu National Forest in Boundary County, Idaho, about 16 miles southwest of Bonners Ferry, at 5,005 feet.1,2

The tower went up in 1937 as a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab.1,2 A 1962 news item, quoted by Forest Lookouts, lists White Mountain among six old Forest Service towers that the Civilian Conservation Corps put up in the 1930s.3

Bobby Reed is the only staff member named on either lookout page. Both list him for 1942, and one of them cites a Bonners Ferry Herald item for it.1,2

The same 1962 item says the towers had been left idle and unmaintained since 1950, when the Forest Service switched to aerial patrol.3 In June 1962 the Sandpoint News Bulletin reported that the towers were being knocked down and burned.3 Both lookout pages give 1962 as the year it was destroyed.1,2

A reader's comment on the Idaho Fire Lookouts page describes a current photo showing burned debris, including electrical battery parts, post bases and a short set of concrete stairs. The same comment mentions an abandoned helipad next to the tower site.1 It is one visitor's report, not a survey. No source read says whether the site is open to visitors, and Idaho Fire Lookouts describes the lookout as a hike-in.1

  1. White Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/white-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. White Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/whitemtn235.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. White Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/white-mountain.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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: agency, ownership, 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, 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.