FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Powell County, Montana

East Spread

Pole L-4 lookout on Spread Mountain, Lolo NF; 1938 construction per newspapers (firelookout.com says 1935); planned use 1966-67; abandoned 1972, no longer standing.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1972 and no longer standing, per firelookout.com.

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 towerPole tower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1938
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Powell County, Montana
Coordinates
47.16010, −113.05448
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-east-spread

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 3.9 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. 1935 EventNewspaper said a lookout was to be established at Spread Mountain. firelookout.com gives 1935 as the build year.Sources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1938 BuiltLolo rangers planned three lookouts that summer, East Spread among them; construction under way by September 1938.Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1938 and 1966
  4. 1966 StaffedListed as one of four fire lookouts in the Seeley Lake District (opinion column).Source: seeleylake.com
  5. 1967 StaffedListed among the 26 lookouts the Lolo planned to use that summer.Source: mhs.mt.gov
  6. 1972 AbandonedAbandoned; no longer standing per firelookout.com.Source: firelookout.com
  7. 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.

East Spread stood on Spread Mountain, about 20 miles east of Seeley Lake in Powell County, in the Lolo National Forest.1 In August 1935 a Missoulian item said new lookout points were being opened in the upper Blackfoot, one of them at Spread Mountain.2 The Independent Record reported in August 1938 that Lolo rangers planned three lookouts that summer, East Spread among them.2 The sites were far from roads, so supplies went in by pack mules over mountain trails, and the building work was to be done by Civilian Conservation Corps crews.2 By September 1938 the Missoulian reported that construction at East Spread was under way.2

Firelookout.com gives a different build year, 1935, and describes a 20-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab.1 A 1938 item describes the planned towers as 50 feet tall, so the build year and the height are not settled.1,2

The Independent Record said staffing the lookouts would allow closer fire watch over the Blackfoot area during fire season.2 In 1966 a former Seeley Lake seasonal worker, writing an opinion column, recalled that the district then had four fire lookouts, East Spread among them.3 A National Register study says the Lolo planned to use only 26 lookouts in the summer of 1967, and East Spread was on that list.4

Firelookout.com says the tower was abandoned in 1972 and is no longer standing.1 Neither page describes what remains on the summit today, and neither says whether the site is open to visitors.1,2

  1. East Spread Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/eastspread.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. East Spread - Forest Lookouts, montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/east-spread.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. People from our past: Dorothy Taylor (opinion column), Seeley Swan Pathfinder, https://www.seeleylake.com/story/2024/08/15/opinion/people-from-our-past-dorothy-taylor/10500.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, fire lookouts, Montana State Historic Preservation Office, https://mhs.mt.gov/Shpo/docs/MPDs/MT_ID_FireLookoutsMPD.pdf (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: 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, 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.