Fire lookout · Beaverhead County, Montana
Lakeview (USFWS)
Also known as Lakeview, Red Rock Lake NWR
100-foot steel Aermotor tower on Red Rock Lakes NWR, Beaverhead County, MT at about 6,700 ft; 1937 build per one source; listed as standing; public climbing unconfirmed.
- Standing
- Access unknown
- Verified
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Access unknown
We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower100-foot steel Aermotor towerThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- Steel
- Built
- 1937
- Height
- 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Elevation
- 6,700 ft (2,042 m)
- Agency
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Beaverhead County, Montana
- Coordinates
- 44.60097, −111.81336
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mt-lakeview-usfws
View from the cab
What you see from the 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.
Downloads about 3.4 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
- 1937 BuiltForest Lookouts gives 1937 for the 100-foot steel tower with cab; the Fire Lookout Tower site says the date is unknownSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
- TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.
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.
Lakeview is a 100-foot steel Aermotor tower on the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, in Beaverhead County, Montana, at about 6,700 feet.1
The refuge dates to April 22, 1935, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it as a migratory waterfowl refuge.2 The tower's build date is unclear. The Forest Lookouts Montana page gives 1937 as the build year for a 100-foot steel tower with a cab, placed above the headquarters.3 The Fire Lookout Tower site says it does not know when the tower was built, and it presumes the tower was meant mainly for watching wildlife.1
The sources I read name no staff and no fires the tower watched.
The refuge's visitor page lists hiking, fishing, hunting, photography and wildlife viewing among the activities on offer there.4 I found no source that says whether the public may climb this tower. The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists it as standing.5 Until the refuge confirms otherwise, treat the tower as off limits, and ask refuge staff before you go.
- Lakeview Fire Lookout Tower, Fire Lookout Tower website, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/lakeview.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, About Us, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, https://www.fws.gov/refuge/red-rock-lakes/about-us (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Red Rock Lakes NWR, Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/red-rocks-lake-nwr.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Visit Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, https://www.fws.gov/refuge/red-rock-lakes/visit-us (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Montana lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) Gave us: elevation, what it is built of, design, agency, photos, 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, 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
- About Us, Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) (opens another site)
- Visit Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) (opens another site)
- FFLA Montana lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Lakeview on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Red Rock Lake NWR 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.