FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

Dixie Peak

Dixie Peak lookout cab in Kaniksu NF: gabled L-4 on rock piers, built 1931, removed 1955; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed in 1955 per two sources. No source describes what, if anything, remains.

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 cabGabled L-4 cab atop rock piersThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
47.66286, −115.67856
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-dixie-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 BuiltGabled L-4 cab built in 1931. In October 1931 construction was under way at Dixie Peak with John Larson in charge.Sources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com, scledger.net
  2. No record between 1931 and 1955
  3. 1955 RemovedCab removed in 1955Sources: firelookout.com, scledger.net
  4. 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.

Dixie Peak lies 16 miles west-northwest of Thompson Falls, in the Kaniksu National Forest.1,2 The lookout was a gabled L-4 cab that sat atop rock piers.1,2

The cab was built in 1931. A Sanders County newspaper item from that October, quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, said lookout houses were going up that season at Lookout Peak and Border Peak, and at Dixie Peak with John Larson in charge.3 The same page gives the site's survey location as 22N-32W-15.3

Firelookout.com and the Sanders County Ledger both say the cab was removed in 1955.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the site as a gone lookout.4

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the peak today, or whether the summit is open to visitors.

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