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Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

Driveway Peak

Sanders County, MT site first staffed 1929 from a tree; 50-ft L-4 tower later gone and cabin burned 1991; a 2020 proposal to move Priscilla Peak lookout there is unconfirmed.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower and building removed or destroyed (sources differ on when); cabin burned in 1991; no source describes the site today

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. 2020 Forest Service proposal: access road NFSR 876 is open yearlong to public motorized use

Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower1929 lookout tree and cabin; later a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1929
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
47.58717, −115.57673
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-driveway-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 4.2 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. 1929 BuiltCabin built just down the ridge for the lookoutSource: scledger.net
  2. 1929 First staffedWatch first kept from a tall tree near the summit; Fred Benson on the peak for the summerSources: scledger.net, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1939 Built50-foot pole tower with L-4 cab, per firelookout.com (the 2020 Ledger gives no date)Source: firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1939 and 1955
  5. 1955 StaffedJack Truckner listed as lookoutSource: firelookout.com
  6. 1957 FireLightning-started fire reported by Clawson in July 1957; he went half a mile down the mountain to put it outSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1957 EventLast four miles of access road builtSource: scledger.net
  8. 1957 StaffedSterling Clawson assigned to the lookoutSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  9. 1958 EventRoad reported open to visitors in July 1958Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  10. 1958 StaffedRobert Calkins listed as lookoutSource: firelookout.com
  11. 1968 StaffedSteve Hart listed as lookoutSource: firelookout.com
  12. 1969 Last staffedLookout station retired after its last season; the 2020 Ledger says the Forest Service later brought down the building and pole structure (no date given)Source: scledger.net
  13. 1978 Destroyedfirelookout.com says the tower was destroyed; conflicts with the Ledger account of removal after 1969Source: firelookout.com
  14. 1991 BurnedCabin at the foot of the tower burned in an accidental fire; the 2020 proposal blames an improperly installed wood stoveSources: scledger.net, scledger.net
  15. No record between 1991 and 2020
  16. 2020 EventForest Service proposed moving the Priscilla Peak lookout to Driveway Peak; completion not confirmed in sources readSource: scledger.net
  17. 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.

Driveway Peak sits roughly 10 to 11 miles west of Thompson Falls, in Sanders County, Montana.1,2 Observations began in 1929, when a lookout climbed a tree close to the peak.3 A cabin was put up a short way down the ridge as living quarters for the lookout.3 Several years on, a platform went up, and lookouts sighted fires with an Osborne firefinder from it.3 Firelookout.com dates a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab to 1939.2

Fred Benson spent the summer of 1929 on the peak, according to an October 1929 Sanders County Independent-Ledger item.4 In July 1957, Sterling Clawson, the lookout assigned there, reported a lightning-caused blaze and hiked half a mile down the slope from his post to extinguish it.4 The Forest Service built the last four miles of access road that year, and by July 1958 the road was open to visitors.3,4 Firelookout.com lists Jack Truckner (1955), Robert Calkins (1958) and Steve Hart (1968) as lookout staff.2

The lookout was retired in 1969 after its final season on duty.3 Accounts of what came next disagree. The 2020 Ledger article says the Forest Service brought down the building and pole structure afterward, while firelookout.com says the tower was destroyed in 1978.2,3 Skiers often used the historic cabin near the base of the pole structure as a warming hut, until an accident destroyed it in 1991.3 A 2020 Forest Service proposal calls the last structure a rental cabin that burned accidentally in the early 1990s, blaming a poorly installed wood stove. It also says all three structures on the site burned, and that two of those fires were deliberately set once the buildings had deteriorated.1

In 2020 the Forest Service proposed relocating the Priscilla Peak lookout, a cabin dating to 1929, to Driveway Peak, where it would be restored and placed in the district's cabin rental program.1 We found no record that the move was carried out.1 A 2020 article noted that Driveway Peak had gone nearly three decades without a historic structure of its own.3 The access road, NFSR 876, was then open to public motor vehicles all year.1 No source we read describes what stands on the peak today.

  1. USFS proposes to move historic lookout, Sanders County Ledger, https://www.scledger.net/story/2020/05/07/news/usfs-proposes-to-move-historic-lookout/4568.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Driveway Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/drivewaypeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. A Tale of Two Peaks, Sanders County Ledger, https://www.scledger.net/story/2020/05/14/news/a-tale-of-two-peaks/4579.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Driveway Peak - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts Montana, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/driveway-peak.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, access, visiting details, 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.