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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Whitetail Peak

A 1934 50-ft pole L-6 lookout in Shoshone County; sources disagree on whether it was destroyed or abandoned in 1953, and none describes the site now.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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?
Yes, you can drive up

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-ft pole tower with L-6 cabThe design: L-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.00962, −116.15807
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-whitetail-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. 1934 Built50-ft pole tower with L-6 cabSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1953
  3. 1953 AbandonedShoshone County list says abandoned; conflicts with destroyedSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1953 DestroyedFirelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts say destroyedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. 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.

Whitetail Peak Lookout stood in Shoshone County, in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, about 9 miles south of Clark Fork, at 5,500 feet.1

The tower was a 50-foot pole with an L-6 cab, built in 1934.1,2 Firelookout.com and the Shoshone County list agree on both points.1,2

The sources do not agree on how the lookout ended. Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts both say it was destroyed in 1953.1,3 A Shoshone County forest lookouts list says it was abandoned that year instead.2

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as gone and places it at 48.00962, -116.15807.4

Idaho Fire Lookouts files the site as drive-up.3 No source describes what remains at the site today, and none says whether the spot is open to visitors.1,3,2

  1. Whitetail Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/whitetailpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts, idaholookouts.weebly.com, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Whitetail Peak, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/whitetail-peak/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Whitetail Peak
Whitetail PeakPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · 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. 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, 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
  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.