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Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

Dad Peak Lookout Site

Gone L-4 ground-house lookout in Sanders County, MT; built 1931 per listings, abandoned in the 1940s, collapsed under heavy snow in 1971.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Collapsed under heavy snow in 1971; register dates the collapse to winter 1971-72

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 ground house with gable roof on a rock foundationThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
6,637 ft (2,023 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Kootenai National Forest (Noxon Ranger District)
Land
Federal land
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
48.16247, −115.71715 sources disagree
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-dad-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 4.5 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 EventJuly 2, 1930 Sanders County Independent-Ledger item: a new lookout station was being established, with a telephone line planned from Bull River Ranger Station.Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1930 StaffedDecade only: one of nine regularly staffed lookouts on the Noxon Ranger District in the 1930s.Source: firetower.org
  3. 1931 BuiltListed as built 1931 (firetower.org Built field; firelookout.com). Conflicts with the 1930 newspaper item.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  4. 1940 AbandonedDecade only: abandoned in the 1940s.Source: firelookout.com
  5. No record between 1940 and 1971
  6. 1971 DestroyedCollapsed under heavy snow. Register says winter 1971-1972; other pages say 1971.Sources: montanalookouts.weebly.com, firetower.org, firelookout.com
  7. No record between 1971 and 2016
  8. 2016 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: March 20, 2016Source: FFLOS register entry
  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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Dad Peak is a former lookout site in Sanders County, Montana, inside the Kootenai National Forest.1 A July 1930 item from the Sanders County Independent-Ledger, reprinted on a Montana lookout page, said a new station was being established there and that a telephone line would run to it from the Bull River Ranger Station.1 Lookout listings date the cabin to 1931. The 1930 item describes the station as still being set up, so I could not reconcile the two dates.2,3

The cabin was an L-4 ground house with a gable roof, set on a rock foundation.2 It stood about half a mile south of the summit.3

In the 1930s it was one of nine lookouts on the Noxon Ranger District that were staffed on a regular basis.2

The cabin was abandoned in the 1940s.3 Heavy snow brought it down in 1971.3,1 The register dates the collapse to the winter of 1971–72, which runs into 1972 rather than ending in 1971.2

Today, the register files Dad Peak under former fire lookout sites.2 None of the pages I read describes what remains on the ground there now.1,2,3

  1. Dad Peak - Forest Lookouts (Montana), montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/dad-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Dad Peak Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites register (firetower.org), http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/mt/dad-peak-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Dad Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/dadpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Dad Peak Lookout Site
Photo: Gary Weber, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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 530 m.

    • FFLA: 48.16247, −115.71715
    • FFLOS: 48.15776, −115.71775

    They share a register number.

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: location, type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. 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
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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
  5. 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.