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Fire lookout · Missoula County, Montana

Gold Creek Point

Lolo NF ground lookout: a 1921 notice calls it in use for years; firelookout.com dates an L-4 cab to 1933; destroyed 1953.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Cab destroyed in 1953; no source describes what remains on the point

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 cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Missoula County, Montana
Coordinates
47.06682, −113.69930
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-gold-creek-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

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. 1921 AlteredMissoulian notice quoted by Forest Lookouts: lookout in use for years and being remodeledSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1933 BuiltL-4 cab, per firelookout.com; the sources do not say whether it replaced the lookout described in 1921Source: firelookout.com
  3. No record between 1933 and 1953
  4. 1953 DestroyedCab destroyed 1953; cause not givenSource: firelookout.com
  5. 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.

Gold Creek Point is a former Forest Service lookout in Missoula County, on the Lolo National Forest, 12 miles southwest of Seeley Lake.1

A lookout was already on the point by 1921. A Missoulian notice from that September, quoted by the Forest Lookouts site, describes it as in use for years and says it was being remodeled.2

The firelookout.com record dates an L-4 cab on the point to 1933.1 The sources we read do not say whether that cab replaced the earlier lookout.

The cab was destroyed in 1953.1 The sources do not say how.

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the site as a ground lookout, with the status Gone.3 We found no source that describes what, if anything, is left on the point today, or whether it is open to visitors.

  1. Gold Creek Point Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/goldcreekpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Gold Creek Point - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts (Montana), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/gold-creek-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. 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.