FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Deer Lodge County, Montana

Cable Mountain

Forest Service lookout near Georgetown Lake; 1937 press describes construction (Kamstra gives 1934); staffed to 1943; reported destroyed or removed; site today not described.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Kamstra says destroyed in 1978; Kemnow says removed, no date; firelookout.org lists it as gone

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 tower20-foot log tower with a frame cab; 14-foot-square tower and living quarters per 1937 press; called a 20-foot pole L-4 tower by KamstraThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1937
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Deerlodge National Forest (per Kemnow)
Land
Federal land
Location
Deer Lodge County, Montana
Coordinates
46.21766, −113.22130 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-cable-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 its recorded height.

Downloads about 3.7 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. 1937 BuiltConstruction begun June 1937 (newspaper dated June 24, 1937) and tower completed and accepted by early September 1937 (newspaper dated September 3, 1937), per Butte and Anaconda newspapers quoted on Kemnow's page; Kamstra gives 1934Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1937 First staffedA lookout observer took over the tower after it was accepted in September 1937Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1938 EventLightning destroyed a tree near the lookout (newspaper dated June 24, 1938); the forest supervisor, Charles A. Joy, said the lookout was not damagedSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1939 StaffedNewspaper dated September 28, 1939 reports John Ringdahl would be taken off the post as the last observer; his removal would mark the official close of the 1939 fire seasonSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1940 StaffedNewspaper dated June 29, 1940: lookout was the only one in its district; Ancient Order of Squirrels membership cards to be issued there by Carl ErmelbauerSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1943 StaffedNewspaper dated July 20, 1943: Anna Beth Glaser named the first woman lookout in the Deer Lodge National Forest and appointed to serve atop Cable MountainSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  7. No record between 1943 and 1978
  8. 1978 DestroyedKamstra's page gives destroyed 1978; Kemnow's page says removed without a dateSource: firelookout.com
  9. 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.

Cable Mountain is a peak northeast of Georgetown Lake.1 In June 1937 the Forest Service began building a fire lookout there: a frame cabin atop a 20-foot log tower, with a telephone line to be strung and a trail to be blazed to the lookout.1 A temporary camp served as the lookout while the work went on.1 By early September 1937 the lookout, a 14-foot-square tower with living quarters, had been completed and accepted.1 Rex Kamstra's list gives 1934 and calls it a 20-foot pole L-4 tower.2 The 1937 newspaper reports describe the building work, so this story follows them.1

The lookout was staffed during its first season.1 A lookout observer took over the tower in September 1937.1 In late September 1939 the paper reported that John Ringdahl would leave the post, and that his departure would mark the official close of that year's fire season.1 In 1940 the lookout was the only one in its district, and the paper says visitors who climbed to it could be given membership cards in the Ancient Order of Squirrels.1 In July 1943 Anna Beth Glaser, 19, of Anaconda, was named the first woman to serve as a lookout in the Deer Lodge National Forest and assigned to the peak.1

The papers also mention a weather incident. In June 1938 lightning destroyed a tree near the lookout, and the forest supervisor said the lookout itself was not damaged.1

The sources disagree on how it ended.1,2 Kamstra's page says it was destroyed in 1978.2 Ron Kemnow's listing says it was removed and gives no date.1 The Montana lookout list marks it as gone.3

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether the ground is open to the public.

  1. Cable Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Montana), Ron Kemnow, montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/cable-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Cable Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/mt/cablemtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana lookout list, firelookout.org, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

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 location by 4.4 km (2.8 mi).

    • FFLA: 46.21766, −113.22130
    • FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites): 46.25270, −113.19339

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

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: height, 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.