FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Blacktail Mountain

Flathead County, MT lookout: 40' L-4 tower dated 1934, 53' replacement in 1962, destroyed 1989; sources disagree on the first date and no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1989 according to firelookout.com; Forest Lookouts marks it removed without a 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 tower40' pole L-4 (1934); 53' treated timber L-4 (1962)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
48.01088, −114.36445
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-blacktail-mountain

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. 1927 First staffedEarliest staffing mention: a 1927 newspaper item names John Croskrey as lookout man at Blacktail for the Blackfoot National Forest serviceSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 Built40-foot pole L-4 tower built per firelookout.com text; its header gives 1935Source: firelookout.com
  3. 1938 StaffedAl Williams placed on the Blacktail lookout (Daily Inter Lake, June 29, 1938)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1949 StaffedHerb Conklin listed as lookout personnelSource: firelookout.com
  5. 1950 EventAccess road of about 11 miles completed from the head of Lake Mary Ronan to the lookoutSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1952 StaffedAlfred Williams listed as lookout personnel; not confirmed as the same person as Al Williams (1938)Source: firelookout.com
  7. 1962 Rebuilt53-foot treated timber L-4 tower built; may have reused the original L-4 cabSource: firelookout.com
  8. No record between 1962 and 1989
  9. 1989 DestroyedSecond tower destroyed per firelookout.comSource: firelookout.com
  10. 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.

Blacktail Mountain rises about six miles west of Lakeside in Flathead County, Montana, to 6,757 feet.1 Two web sources tell its lookout history, and they differ on a few dates.1,2

The earliest mention we found is a 1927 newspaper item, reprinted by Forest Lookouts, about a man hired to staff the Blacktail lookout for the Blackfoot National Forest.2 Firelookout.com says a 40-foot pole L-4 tower went up in 1934.1 Its own header, however, gives 1935 as the start date for that first tower, so the page disagrees with itself.1 A 53-foot treated timber L-4 tower followed in 1962 and may have reused the first tower's cab.1

The two pages also name the agency differently. Forest Lookouts lists the Flathead National Forest with the Northern Montana Forestry association, while firelookout.com lists the Flathead National Forest with the Montana DNRC.1,2

Staffing records are thin. Forest Lookouts reports that Al Williams was assigned to the Blacktail lookout in June 1938.2 Firelookout.com lists Herb Conklin in 1949 and Alfred Williams in 1952.1 The sources do not say whether the two Williams entries are the same person. In September 1950 an access road of about 11 miles, starting at the head of Lake Mary Ronan, was finished to the lookout.2 The road cut about half a day off the trip to the lookout in case of fire, and it ended the need to pack in with horses.2

Firelookout.com says the second tower was destroyed in 1989.1 Forest Lookouts marks the site as removed but gives no date.2

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the mountain today, or whether the site is open to the public. Check with the Flathead National Forest before trying to find it.

  1. Blacktail Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/mt/blacktail.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Blacktail Mountain, Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/blacktail-mountain.html (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, 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.