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Fire lookout · Lincoln County, Montana

Big Hoodoo

Also known as Big Hoodoo Mountain

A Kootenai National Forest lookout near Libby, begun about 1930 per a newspaper and dated 1934 by firelookout.com; abandoned 1942 and gone.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. firelookout.com: Abandoned 1942. Gone. The Forest Fire Lookout Association list reads Tower Gone. Forest Lookouts shows no status.

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 towerL-4 cab on a pole observation tower; a 1930 newspaper item says the tower was to be 85 ftThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
85 ft (25.9 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kootenai National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lincoln County, Montana
Coordinates
48.22231, −115.54209
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-big-hoodoo

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 4.4 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 BuiltJuly 1930 Western News item (quoted by Forest Lookouts): a new lookout station under construction on Big Hoodoo with an 85-ft tower; Jack Halfstead to be stationed there. Conflicts with firelookout.com's 1934 date.Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 Eventfirelookout.com dates the L-4 cab and pole observation tower to 1934.Source: firelookout.com
  3. 1938 StaffedSeptember 1938 Montana Standard item (quoted by Forest Lookouts): CCC youths were ordered to a farm by a Hoodoo mountain forest lookout. No observer named.Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1942 Abandonedfirelookout.com: Abandoned 1942.Source: 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.

Big Hoodoo Mountain lies about 11 miles south of Libby, in Lincoln County, Montana, on the Kootenai National Forest.1,2 Firelookout.com puts its elevation at 5,236 feet.1

A July 1930 Western News item, quoted on the Forest Lookouts site, reported a new lookout station going up on the peak, with a trail and a telephone line to the top.2 The paper said a tower 85 feet high was needed for a clear view, and that it would be the highest on the Kootenai.2 Jack Halfstead was to be posted there.2 Firelookout.com instead dates the lookout to 1934 and describes an L-4 cab on a pole observation tower.1 The two dates do not match.1,2

A September 1938 item, quoted from the Montana Standard, describes a truckload of CCC youths sent out on the orders of a Hoodoo lookout, bringing a farmer with arthritis to town for medical care.2

Firelookout.com says the lookout was abandoned in 1942 and is now gone.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list also reads "Tower Gone."3

No source describes what remains on the summit, and none says whether the site is open to visitors.1,2,3

  1. Big Hoodoo Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/mt/bighoodoo.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Big Hoodoo Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/big-hoodoo-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana fire lookout list, 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, staffing, 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.