Fire lookout · Lincoln County, Montana
Flower Point
Lincoln County, MT: a station reported in 1930 atop a pine, a cabin of 1931 and an L-4 tower of 1934 later destroyed; a 2020 trip report finds the tower in shambles.
- Ruins
- Open to the public
- Verified
Ruins: Only footings or remains are left. The Fire Lookout Association lists the site as gone; a 2020 trip report describes the tower in shambles, with trees over the summit
Visit & stay
Ruins: footings or remains only. There is no structure to climb or rent.
Access
Open to the public. Reached on foot by a trail from the Flower Creek trailhead, per a 2020 trip report; no official access notice read
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Trail
- About a mile of trail from the Flower Creek trailhead, faint near the top; the trip report says to expect no view from the summit
Facts
- Status
- sources disagree
- Type
- Cab on a towerPlatform atop a 60-foot pine tree; earlier 50-foot pole L-4 tower built 1934The design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1930
- Height
- 50 ft (15.2 m)
- Elevation
- 4,260 ft (1,299 m)
- Agency
- Kootenai National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Lincoln County, Montana
- Coordinates
- 48.36142, −115.62891
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mt-flower-point
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 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
- 1930 BuiltStation reported finished the week before 11 September 1930 and described as perched atop a tall pineSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
- 1930 StaffedHarry Cooper named as the man who spent his time there watching for fireSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
- 1931 BuiltFrame cabin, per firelookout.comSource: firelookout.com
- 1934 Built50-foot pole L-4 tower about 1/8 mile east of the platform, per firelookout.comSource: firelookout.com
- TodayRuinsOnly footings or remains are left. When it came down is not recorded.
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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Flower Point is in Lincoln County, Montana, about two miles southwest of Libby.1 The page lists the Kootenai National Forest as its agency and gives an elevation of 4,260 feet.1
A news item from September 11, 1930, quoted on Rex's Fire Lookout Page, reports a new station completed the week before by crews of the Libby district.2 The station sat on top of a tall pine, 88 feet from the ground, and the item says it was the highest station on the forest.2 The item names Harry Cooper as the observer on duty there, whose job was to spot fires across the district.2
The firelookout.com page gives a more tangled history. It says the present platform, atop a 60-foot pine, could date from as early as 1921 or as late as 1931.1 It also says a frame cabin was built in 1931, and that a 50-foot pole L-4 tower about an eighth of a mile east went up in 1934 and was destroyed in the late 1940s.1
The two accounts disagree on height: 88 feet in 1930 against a 60-foot pine on the firelookout.com page.1,2 The sources do not say whether they describe the same structure.1,2
The Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks the site as gone.3 A hiker's trip report dated October 3, 2020, describes the lookout tower as in shambles, with trees over the summit.4
The same report describes a hike of about a mile from the Flower Creek trailhead, reached by the gravel Flower Creek Road (FR-128), with the trail fading near the top.4 It says to expect no view from the summit.4
The sources we read do not say whether the site is officially open, so check with the Kootenai National Forest, the agency the page lists, before you go.4,1
- Flower Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/flowerpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Flower Point, Forest Lookouts (Rex's Fire Lookout Page), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/flower-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Flower Point and Flower Lake, NaughtyHiker, https://www.naughtyhiker.com/flower-point-and-flower-lake/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
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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 whether it still stands.
- FFLA: Gone
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: Standing
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) Gave us: elevation, design, height, agency, ownership, dates, 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, staffing, 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
- Flower Point and Flower Lake (NaughtyHiker) (opens another site)
- FFLA Montana lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Flower Point on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Flower Point on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.