FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Missoula County, Montana

Belmont Point

Lolo National Forest lookout nine miles southwest of Seeley Lake; a 30-ft pole L-4 tower from 1932, listed destroyed in 1957 or removed. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone. One listing says destroyed in 1957; another says removed, with no date.

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?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30' pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1932
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Missoula County, Montana
Coordinates
47.06347, −113.60236
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-belmont-point

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 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. 1932 Built30-foot pole L-4 towerSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1937 StaffedDale White reported as the Forest Service lookout atop Belmont Peak, August 1937 (Billings Gazette, quoted by Forest Lookouts)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1937 and 1957
  4. 1957 DestroyedListed as destroyed in 1957Source: firelookout.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.

Belmont Point is a lookout site on a peak in the Lolo National Forest, about nine miles southwest of Seeley Lake.1,2 The firelookout.com listing says a 30-foot pole tower of the L-4 type went up there in 1932.1

In August 1937 a Billings Gazette report, quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, named Dale White of Missoula as the 24-year-old Forest Service lookout on Belmont Peak.2 White reported that a man he had tried to arrest for a game violation cut him across the face with a knife.2

The firelookout.com listing says the tower was destroyed in 1957.1 Forest Lookouts marks the site as removed, with no date.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list shows the tower as gone.3 The sources do not agree on how the tower ended, but all three agree it is no longer standing.1,2,3

We found no source describing what, if anything, remains on the peak today, or whether the public may visit.1,2

  1. Belmont Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/belmontpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Belmont Point, Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/belmont-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (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. 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, 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.