Fire lookout · Jefferson County, Montana
Jack Mountain Lookout Site
Removed 53-ft timber lookout on Jack Mountain, Jefferson County, MT; built 1965 per newspaper (register says 1964), torn down 2011, foundation posts remain.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Torn down in 2011; foundation posts and a survey benchmark remain per peakbagging.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
- Trail
- A picture-tour page advises a hike to the former site from Basin; no other source checked gives route or road details.
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower53-ft treated timber tower with R-6 cabThe design: R-6
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1964
- Height
- 53 ft (16.2 m)
- Elevation
- 8,752 ft (2,668 m)
- Agency
- U.S. Forest Service (Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest)
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Jefferson County, Montana
- Coordinates
- 46.33844, −112.29249
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mt-jack-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 4.1 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
- 1964 Built'Built' field on FFLOS detail pageSource: FFLOS register entry
- 1965 BuiltCompleted 1965 per a 1965 Montana Standard-Post item (quoted on montanalookouts.weebly.com); firelookout.com and peakbagging.com also say 1965. FFLOS register lists 1964.Sources: montanalookouts.weebly.com, firetower.org, firelookout.com
- 1965 Replaced by a new structureReplaced the old, unsafe lookout station on Thunderbolt Mountain, which was removed.Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1965 and 1984
- 1984 EventNot used for fire detection purposes after 1984 (FFLOS description). Not an explicit staffing date.Source: firetower.org
- No record between 1984 and 2011
- 2011 RemovedTorn down in 2011 (firelookout.com; FFLOS Removed field). A picture-tour page says removed for safety reasons.Sources: montanalookouts.weebly.com, firetower.org, firelookout.com
- 2020 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered March 24, 2020; nominated by Calvin Schneckloth.Source: firetower.org
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Jack Mountain sits in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, in Jefferson County, Montana.1 A 1965 newspaper item, quoted on a Montana lookout site, announced a new fire lookout tower on the mountain, north of Basin.2 The tower stood 53 feet tall, was built of treated timber, and carried a lookout cab on top.2,3 It replaced an older, unsafe station on Thunderbolt Mountain that was taken down.2
The register gives 1964 as the build year, but the newspaper item and two other pages say 1965.2,1,4,3
The register describes the tower as seldom used, and says it stopped serving fire detection after 1984.1 Firelookout.com says it had been unstaffed for some years before it came down.4
It was torn down in 2011.2,4 A picture-tour page says it was removed for safety reasons that year.5
One peakbagging page says only the foundation posts are left.3 The same page also mentions a survey benchmark, placed in 1986, sitting in the middle of the former tower spot.3 A picture-tour page says visitors should still plan a hike to the former site, where it describes old log cabins and relics from Basin's mining history.5
- Jack Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites register (firetower.org), http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/mt/jack-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Jack Mountain - Forest Lookouts (Montana), montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/jack-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Jack Mountain (LO site), Montana, peakbagging.com, http://www.peakbagging.com/MTLookoutPhotos/JackMtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Jack Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/jackmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Basin Montana Picture Tour, MontanaPictures.Net, https://www.montanapictures.net/basin-montana-picture-tour-montanapictures-net/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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.
Sources
- Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: height, 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, height, status, agency, 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
- FFLOS register entry US 1945 (firetower.org) (opens another site)
- Jack Mountain (LO site), Montana (peakbagging.com) (opens another site)
- Basin Montana Picture Tour (MontanaPictures.Net) (opens another site)
- FFLA Montana lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Jack Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Jack Mountain 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.