FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

Government Mountain

Kootenai National Forest tower near Noxon, Sanders County, Montana; built 1930-31, lookouts named into 1942, abandoned 1950, now gone.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone. Abandoned in 1950; no source describes what remains.

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 tower50-foot pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kootenai National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
48.04148, −115.78897 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-government-mountain

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 4.4 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. 1930 BuiltSanders County paper says the cabin and lookout tower were completed by June 1930; firelookout.com dates the tower to 1931Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1930 First staffedWilliam Scholes of Noxon assigned the lookout post; first lookout named in the sourcesSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1931 StaffedEarl Helms named lookout for 1931Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1933 StaffedEarl Helms set to be stationed there that summer (June 1933 notice)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1942 StaffedFrank Hoag called lookout on Gov. Peak (July 1942 notice)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1950 Abandonedfirelookout.com: abandoned in 1950Source: 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.

The Government Mountain lookout stood about three miles northeast of Noxon, in Sanders County, Montana, on the Kootenai National Forest.1 Newspapers of the period called the spot Government Peak, and the Forest Lookouts page files their notices under Government Mountain.2 In June 1930 a Sanders County paper noted that both a cabin for firefighters and a lookout tower were finished there.2

The firelookout.com page gives 1930 for the cabin and 1931 for the tower, which it describes as a 50-foot pole L-4 tower.1 The June 1930 notice already calls the cabin and tower complete, so the two accounts disagree about when the tower went up.1,2

Newspaper notices name a run of lookouts.2 William Scholes of Noxon was assigned the post in 1930, the first lookout the sources name.2 Earl Helms was named for 1931, and a June 1933 notice has him set to be stationed there that summer.2 By September 1934 he was home.2 A September 1936 notice places an old schoolmate on the peak, and in July 1942 Frank Hoag is called the lookout there.2

The firelookout.com page says the tower was abandoned in 1950.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association list marks the site as gone.3

No source I read describes what remains at the site today, or whether the public can reach it.1,2,3

  1. Government Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/governmentmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Government Mountain, Forest Lookouts, montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/government-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

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 location by 4.8 km (3.0 mi).

    • FFLA: 48.04148, −115.78897
    • FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites): 48.03130, −115.72610

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

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, 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.