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Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

Eddy Mountain Lookout

Lolo NF lookout on Eddy Peak, Sanders County, MT: 1931 L-4 house, present R-6 cab 1982; NHLR-registered 2009; manned in summer; gated road, visiting hours per a commercial operator.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. Gated road about 0.7 mile below the top, then a 170-yard shale trail, per a commercial operator. Operator lists visiting hours of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week, when operating; not verified with the Forest Service. Level is my judgment.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Gate about 0.7 mile from the top; about 170 yards on a shale trail to the tower (operator description)
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Two-story buildingR-6 flat-topped cab, 15 by 15 feet, with catwalk on a 10-foot concrete base (present tower); first station an L-4 ground house, 1931The designs: L-4, R-6
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Height
10 ft (3.0 m)
Elevation
6,957 ft (2,121 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Lolo National Forest, Plains/Thompson Falls Ranger District
Land
Federal land
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
47.54194, −115.18806
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-eddy-mountain

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

Downloads about 4.0 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 Builtfirst station, a gable-roof L-4 ground house; reported constructed July 1931Sources: nhlr.org, montanalookouts.weebly.com, scledger.net
  2. No record between 1931 and 1958
  3. 1958 Eventroad to the lookout still under reconstruction and not open to the general publicSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1971 StaffedPhyllis Beecher, from Billings, first woman assigned to a lookout on the districtSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1982 Built'Built' field on NHLR detail pageSource: NHLR register entry
  6. 1982 Replaced by a new structurepresent R-6 cab built after the earlier structure was demolishedSources: nhlr.org, scledger.net
  7. No record between 1982 and 2009
  8. 2009 Added to the National Historic Lookout Registerregistered April 24, 2009 as US 786, MT 47Sources: nhlr.org, scledger.net
  9. 2020 Staffedmanned for the season; Craig Phillips had manned it for 15 yearsSource: scledger.net
  10. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Eddy Mountain Lookout stands on Eddy Peak in Sanders County, on the Lolo National Forest.1 Sources disagree on its distance from Thompson Falls. One puts it eight miles southeast of town and another about 21 miles southeast, so check a map before you set out.2,3

The first station was a gable-roofed L-4 ground house, built in 1931.1 The Sanders County Independent-Ledger reported in July 1931 that the Eddy Peak lookout house had been constructed.4 The present building, an R-6 flat-topped cab on a ten-foot concrete base, went up in 1982 after the older structure was demolished.1,3

Staffing has gone on for decades.1 A 1971 item noted that Phyllis Beecher, from Billings, was, in local Forest Service memory, the first woman assigned to a lookout on the district.4 In 2020 the Sanders County Ledger reported that Eddy Mountain and Pat's Knob were both manned for the season. Craig Phillips, who had manned Eddy Mountain for 15 years, opened it on July 4 to discourage fireworks nearby.3

The National Historic Lookout Register registered the lookout on April 24, 2009, as US 786, MT 47, and says it is still staffed every season.1

Access is the open question. A commercial operator describes Eddy Peak Road as gated about 0.7 mile from the top, with a 170-yard shale trail to the tower.5 It says the tower has visiting hours of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week, when operating.5 The operator lists no rentals there.5 The Forest's rental list names other lookouts, such as Cougar Peak and Thompson Peak, but not this one.6 Treat the visiting hours as unverified, and check with the Plains/Thompson Falls district before going up.

  1. Eddy Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mt/eddy-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Eddy Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/eddymtn.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Ed Moreth, "Lookouts prepare their posts," Sanders County Ledger, July 9, 2020, https://www.scledger.net/story/2020/07/09/communities/lookouts-prepare-their-posts/4814.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Eddy Mountain - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts Montana (montanalookouts.weebly.com), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/eddy-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  5. Rentals at Trail Option: Eddy Peak Road, Smith Adventures (commercial operator), https://smithadventures.recsystems.com/locations/smith-adventures (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  6. Camping and Cabins, Lolo National Forest, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r01/lolo/recreation/camping-cabins (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Eddy Mountain Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Eddy Mtn. in 1932
Eddy Mtn. in 1932 (1932)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum, Gary Weber, and Rex Kamstra, via firelookout.com · source
Eddy Mtn. in 2009
Eddy Mtn. in 2009 (2009)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum, Gary Weber, and Rex Kamstra, via firelookout.com · source
Eddy Mtn. in 2023
Eddy Mtn. in 2023 (2023)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum, Gary Weber, and Rex Kamstra, via firelookout.com · 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 year it was built.

    • NHLR: 1982
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1931

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.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: 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: what it is built of, design, height, photos, 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, 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

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