FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

Border Peak

1931 L-4 cab on Border Peak in Sanders County, listed under Lolo National Forest; one listing says destroyed in 1962, another says removed. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. One listing says destroyed in 1962; another lists the site only as 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
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
47.90135, −115.15355
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-border-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 4.3 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. 1931 BuiltL-4 cab; an October 7, 1931 newspaper item, as quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, says lookout houses were being constructed at Border PeakSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1931 and 1962
  3. 1962 DestroyedListed as destroyed in 1962Source: firelookout.com
  4. Date unknown RemovedListed as removed, with no dateSource: montanalookouts.weebly.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.

Border Peak sits about 23 miles north-northeast of Thompson Falls, at 5,422 feet, in Sanders County.1 Listings place the lookout under the Lolo National Forest.1,2

Work on the lookout was under way by October 1931.2 A newspaper item of October 7, 1931, reported that Bob Paulin and Jim Carter were building a lookout house on Border Peak, as quoted on a Montana lookout history page.2 The design was an L-4 cab.1 In general terms, a local history column says the L-4 was far and away the favorite live-in design. It describes the cab as 14 by 14 feet, of wood frame, with windows on every side.3

Sources disagree on how the cabin ended. One listing says it was destroyed in 1962.1 Another lists the site only as removed, with no date.2 A state lookout list marks it as gone.4

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the summit, or whether the site is open to visitors.1,2,4 Anyone planning a trip should check with the Lolo National Forest first.

  1. Border Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/borderpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Border Peak - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/border-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Remember When: Lookouts in Sanders County, Sanders County Ledger, https://scledger.net/story/2021/08/19/communities/remember-when/6635.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. 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, 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.