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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Wonderful Peak Lookout

St. Joe NF hike-in lookout in Shoshone County: an L-4 cab built 1935 and destroyed 1972; no source describes what, if anything, remains today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1972. No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. On St. Joe National Forest land; Idaho Fire Lookouts classes it as hike-in; no closure or permit described

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 towerL-4 cab on a tower, with a patrol point 1.5 miles west atop Champion PointThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.40890, −115.76110
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-wonderful-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 4.0 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 StaffedDan Zobel listed as known staff for 1934 (Idaho Fire Lookouts, citing Hardship & Happy Times); the year is one before the 1935 build dateSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1935 BuiltL-4 cab on a tower, 1935 in both sourcesSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. No record between 1935 and 1972
  4. 1972 DestroyedDestroyed; both sources give 1972Sources: 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.

Wonderful Peak is in Shoshone County, Idaho, on the St. Joe National Forest, about 4 miles south of Mullan.1 The tower carried an L-4 cab and went up in 1935.1,2 A patrol point stood 1.5 miles west, atop Champion Point.1,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts files the site in its St. Joe - Clearwater region.2

Idaho Fire Lookouts names Dan Zobel as the known staff member for 1934, citing a book called Hardship & Happy Times.2 That is a year before the 1935 build date both sites give, and neither explains the gap.1,2

The tower was destroyed in 1972.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks it as gone.3

Idaho Fire Lookouts classes the site as hike-in, so reaching it means walking in.2 No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today.1,2,3

  1. Wonderful Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/wonderfulpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Wonderful Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/wonderful-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Forest Fire Lookout Association, Idaho lookout list, 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, 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.