FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Apgar Lookout

Also known as Apgar Mountain

A 1930 Glacier National Park lookout that replaced a 1927 cabin burned two weeks after completion; still standing but boarded up.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. Reachable by trail; no source confirms public entry is permitted

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Quarter mile below the summit of Apgar Mountain
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Two-story buildingTwo-story wooden structure, enclosed 10-ft tower, 14x14-ft cab, pyramidal roofThe design: National Park Service lookout
Built of
Wood
Height
48 ft (14.6 m)
Elevation
5,128 ft (1,563 m)
Agency
National Park Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
48.51782, −114.02043
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-apgar

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

Downloads about 4.1 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. 1927 BuiltElevated platform and log cabin builtSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1929 DestroyedFirst structure destroyed by fire two weeks after completion (per NHLR and Wikipedia text)Sources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org
  3. 1930 RebuiltPresent two-story cab built; NHLR and NRHP give 1930, Wikipedia infobox and firelookout.com give 1929Sources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org, firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1930 and 1986
  5. 1986 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesAdded to NRHP December 16, 1986 as part of Glacier National Park MRASource: en.wikipedia.org
  6. 1991 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered September 15, 1991 as US 33Source: nhlr.org
  7. No record between 1991 and 2015
  8. 2015 Condition assessmentCondition assessment by volunteers, to plan maintenance.Sources: nwmt-ffla.org, nwmt-ffla.org
  9. 2016 Condition assessmentCondition assessment, part of NMLA's 2016 push to assess lookouts.Sources: nwmt-ffla.org, nwmt-ffla.org
  10. 2016 RestoredVolunteers scraped and repainted the exterior, replaced one broken window, reglazed others and replaced two door shutter boards.Sources: nwmt-ffla.org, nwmt-ffla.org
  11. 2019 Condition assessmentJune assessment, also a training trip for future assessors; the 2016 paint was still in very good shape.Sources: nwmt-ffla.org, nwmt-ffla.org
  12. 2022 Condition assessmentRepeat assessment (done every three years): structurally sound, already needing fresh paint.Sources: nwmt-ffla.org, nwmt-ffla.org
  13. 2025 Condition assessmentRepeat assessment: good shape; minor cosmetic repairs, possible rodent entry points, graffiti and window gaps noted.Sources: nwmt-ffla.org, nwmt-ffla.org
  14. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Apgar Lookout sits a quarter mile below the summit of Apgar Mountain, on the southeast spur above Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park.1 The first structure on the site, a log cabin on an elevated platform, went up in 1927, but it burned in a forest fire only two weeks after it was finished.2,1 The National Park Service rebuilt immediately, using the same design: a two-story wooden structure with an enclosed ten-foot tower and a 14-by-14-foot cab under a pyramidal roof.3,2 Sources disagree on exactly when: the National Historic Lookout Register and the NRHP nomination both date the present building to 1930, while Wikipedia's infobox and firelookout.com give 1929.3,2,1

Apgar is one of several near-identical lookouts the Park Service built in the 1920s and 1930s to form an overlapping fire-watch network across Glacier, using a standard U.S. Forest Service cab design adapted for park use.2 At roughly 5,130 feet, it is the lowest-elevation lookout in the park.3 No source consulted gives details on who staffed the tower or for how long.

The lookout was formally added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 16, 1986, as part of the Glacier National Park Multiple Resource Area, and was registered with the National Historic Lookout Register on September 15, 1991, as US 33.3,2 Wikipedia reports that the structure is boarded up and no longer in use.2

A trail leads to the lookout, and it remains standing on National Park Service land, but nothing in the sources consulted indicates that the public may enter or climb it. Visitors should treat it as a historic structure to view from outside rather than a place to stay overnight.

  1. Apgar Mountain Lookout, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/apgar.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Apgar Fire Lookout, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_Fire_Lookout (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Apgar Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mt/apgar-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of Apgar Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Apgar in 1965
Apgar in 1965 (1965)Photo: Bill Yake and the Fire Lookout Museum, via firelookout.com · source
Apgar in 1998
Apgar in 1998 (1998)Photo: Bill Yake and the Fire Lookout Museum, via firelookout.com · source
Photo of Apgar Lookout
Photo: Magicpiano, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

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Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the year it was built.

    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1927
    • Wikidata: 1930
    • OpenStreetMap: 1929

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.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: dates, photos, 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. Northwest Montana Lookout Association Gave us: design, dates, links Northwest Montana Lookout Association (nwmt-ffla.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, dimensions, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the NMLA page or PDF it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR and FFLA records (NMLA publishes none). · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: register numbers, photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  6. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  7. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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
  8. 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.