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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

White Peak Lookout Site

Coeur d'Alene NF lookout: camp 1930, 30-foot L-4 pole tower 1934, destroyed about 1960; cement footings and debris remain.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower destroyed about 1960; cement footings and debris remain 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. Hike-in site on Coeur d'Alene National Forest land; the sources read mention no closure or permit, but none says outright that the site is open to the public

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Hike-in; Idaho Fire Lookouts calls the hike beautiful and easy to follow

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
5,228 ft (1,594 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.60540, −116.02069
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-white-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 3.8 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. 1930 EventFirefighting camp on the siteSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 Built30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1934 StaffedDuncan McClean named as lookout in a Wallace Press-Times item dated 06/07/1934Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1935 StaffedWalter Edelbute named as lookout in a Wallace Press-Times item dated 06/25/1935Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 1936 EventLookout called in because of rain and cool weather, per a Spokane Chronicle item quoted by Forest Lookouts (September 4, 1936)Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1937 StaffedJulius Larson listed as lookout on Idaho Fire Lookouts (no newspaper cited)Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  7. 1940 StaffedGerald Cox listed as lookout on Idaho Fire Lookouts under 1940 (Wallace-Press Times item)Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  8. No record between 1940 and 1960
  9. 1960 DestroyedTower destroyed; Forest Lookouts gives c.1960Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  10. No record between 1960 and 2020
  11. 2020 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered March 24, 2020; nominated by Tom TaylorSource: firetower.org
  12. 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

White Peak sits in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest in Shoshone County, Idaho, about five miles northeast of Kellogg.1,2 The site began as a firefighting camp in 1930.2,3,4 In 1934 a 30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab went up there.2,3,4

Idaho Fire Lookouts names Duncan McClean for 1934, Walter Edelbute for 1935, Julius Larson for 1937 and Gerald Cox for 1940. Three of those four entries cite Wallace newspapers.3 A September 1936 item from the Spokane Chronicle, quoted by the Forest Lookouts site, says the lookout had been called in by forest service officials because rain and cool weather had lowered the fire danger.4

Sources date the tower's destruction to about 1960.2,3,4 A visitor who hiked out to the site found a fairly large pit of debris, and the writer thinks the tower burned where it stood.3

The register says the tower is long gone, but all four cement blocks that supported its legs remain, and the old bedframe lies on the ground.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts says the footings are still there, and debris from when the tower stood is scattered around the site.3

Idaho Fire Lookouts describes the site as a hike-in and calls the route out scenic and simple to follow.3 The sources we read mention no closure or permit, but none says outright that the site is open to the public.2,3

  1. White Peak Lookout Site (US 1939), Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/id/white-peak-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. White Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/whitepeak.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. White Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/white-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. White Peak, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/white-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Remains of tower leg
Remains of tower legPhoto: Tom Taylor, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. 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
  4. Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) Gave us: dates, photos, 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
  5. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, height, 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
  6. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, 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.