FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Mineral County, Montana

Keystone Peak

Lookout on Keystone Peak, Mineral County, MT, in use 1934 to 1980; sources disagree on whether it was destroyed or removed. No site description found.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Sources disagree on how it ended: firelookout.com says destroyed in 1980, Montanalookouts says removed with no date.

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 tower10' pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Mineral County, Montana
Coordinates
47.29403, −114.90759
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-keystone-peak

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 4.1 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

  1. 1934 Builtfirelookout.com dates the tower to 1934; the Montana History Portal gives 1934 as the start of lookout use on the peakSources: mtmemory.org, firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1980
  3. 1980 Destroyedfirelookout.com says destroyed in 1980; the Montana History Portal says the lookout stood until 1980; Montanalookouts lists it as removed, undatedSources: mtmemory.org, firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 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.

Keystone Peak rises to 5,843 feet in Mineral County, Montana.1 Firelookout.com puts it at 5,878 feet.2 The peak, Keystone Creek and the town of Keystone all take their name from the Keystone Mine, which Phillip O'Rourke and others discovered in 1887.1 That silver mine ran on and off until the 1930s.1

A fire lookout went up on the peak in 1934, and firelookout.com calls it a 10' pole L-4 tower.2 The Montana History Portal says a lookout stood there from 1934 until 1980.1 Both firelookout.com and Montanalookouts list the Lolo National Forest as the agency.2,3

The sources do not agree on how the lookout ended.2,3,4 Firelookout.com says it was destroyed in 1980.2 Montanalookouts lists the tower as removed and gives no date.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks it as gone.4

We found no source that describes what, if anything, is still standing on the summit, or whether visitors can reach it.2,3

  1. Keystone Peak, Montana History Portal, https://www.mtmemory.org/nodes/view/128783 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Keystone Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/keystonepeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Keystone Peak - Forest Lookouts, Montanalookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/keystone-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. 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.