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Fire lookout · Lake County, Montana

Jim Creek

Lake County, MT lookout: 1916 two-story log house, 1934 L-4 tower, 1959-60 R-6 tower; staffed through 1972, removed by 1979. Sources disagree on 1959 vs 1960.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed by 1979, per FireLookout.com; no source describes what remains at the site.

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
Two-story building53-foot treated timber R-6 tower, last of three structures (two-story log house, 50-foot L-4 tower)The designs: L-4, R-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1916
Height
53 ft (16.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lake County, Montana
Coordinates
47.61222, −113.83500
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-jim-creek

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 4.0 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. 1916 BuiltTwo-story log house with a hip roofSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1923 EventForest Service photograph captioned Jim Creek lookout, 1923; same style as the original Spotted Bear lookout of 1914Source: fs.usda.gov
  3. 1934 Replaced by a new structureLog house replaced by a 50-foot L-4 towerSource: firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1934 and 1949
  5. 1949 EventPacker carried lookout supplies to the station (Flathead Courier, June 30, 1949)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1957 StaffedCouple listed as lookout personnelSource: firelookout.com
  7. 1958 StaffedCouple listed as lookout personnelSource: firelookout.com
  8. 1959 EventForest Service staff building a new lookout in October 1959; workers left their posts when high winds hit in November 1959Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  9. 1960 Built53-foot treated timber R-6 tower, a quarter of the way up the sidehill (FireLookout.com date; 1959 newspaper notes show work under way)Sources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  10. 1966 StaffedListed among 21 lookouts occupied on the Flathead National Forest during the fire seasonSource: fs.usda.gov
  11. 1972 Last staffedStaffed through 1972Source: firelookout.com
  12. 1979 RemovedRemoved by 1979Source: firelookout.com
  13. 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.

Jim Creek is a former fire lookout in Lake County, about 16 miles southeast of Polson, on the Flathead National Forest.1,2 The first building was a two-story log house with a hip roof, which FireLookout.com dates to 1916.1 A Forest Service history of the forest includes a 1923 photograph of the Jim Creek lookout, and its caption says the lookout matched the style of the original Spotted Bear lookout, which dates to 1914.3

In 1934 a 50-foot L-4 tower replaced the log house.1 Newspaper notes quoted on the Forest Lookouts page describe work on a new tower in late 1959.4 In October, Forest Service staff were staying at the lookout while they built a new one, and in November, workers who had been stationed there left their posts when high winds hit.4 FireLookout.com instead dates the replacement, a 53-foot treated timber R-6 tower set a quarter of the way up the hillside, to 1960.1 The two sources disagree on that year.1,4

During World War II the forest put women in four of its lookouts, and Jim Creek was one of them.3 A 1966 Forest Service list of occupied lookouts includes Jim Creek.3 FireLookout.com names one married couple as lookout staff for 1957 and another for 1958.1 The Flathead Courier reported in June 1949 that a packer had carried lookout supplies to the station.4

The lookout was staffed through 1972 and removed by 1979, according to FireLookout.com.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks it as gone.2

No source I read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether the public can reach it.1,4,2

  1. Jim Creek Fire Lookout Cabin, FireLookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/jimcreek.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Trails of the Past: Historical Overview of the Flathead National Forest, Montana, 1800-1960, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/nfs/files/r01/flathead/publication/trails-past.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Jim Creek, Forest Lookouts (montanalookouts.weebly.com), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/jim-creek.html (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, height, status, agency, staffing, 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.