FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Mineral County, Montana

Landowner Mountain

Mineral County, MT tower on the Lolo NF: a 30-ft L-4 cab built 1934, abandoned 1967, and both structures destroyed in a 2000 wildfire.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower and cabin both burned in 2000; no source describes what remains on the ridge.

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 tower30-ft round timber tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Mineral County, Montana
Coordinates
47.02379, −114.94149
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-landowner-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 4.2 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 EventSite developed with a log cabin and platform tower (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.com
  2. 1934 Built30-ft tower with L-4 cab replaced an earlier log cabinSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1935 StaffedErwin named as lookout on Landowner peak; Lester Ellingson reported back from the post (two Missoulian items dated Sept 1 and Sept 22, via Forest Lookouts)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1939 StaffedCarl Creagar left to work as lookout at Landowner peak near Alberton (Ravalli Republican item, via Forest Lookouts)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1939 and 1957
  6. 1957 StaffedClarence Hoepfner listed as lookoutSource: firelookout.com
  7. 1958 StaffedAlfred Oberst listed as lookoutSource: firelookout.com
  8. 1959 StaffedJim Freer listed as lookoutSource: firelookout.com
  9. 1967 AbandonedAbandoned since 1967 (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.com
  10. No record between 1967 and 2000
  11. 2000 BurnedBoth structures burned in a 2000 forest fire (firelookout.com; Forest Lookouts). A Missoulian subhead says ground crews could not safely work the site; article body unread, date unverifiedSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com, missoulian.com
  12. 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.

Landowner Mountain sits in Mineral County, Montana, about 12 miles south of Superior, in the Lolo National Forest.1,2 The firelookout.com page says the site was developed in 1930 with a log cabin and a platform tower.1 A 30-foot tower with an L-4 cab went up in 1934 and replaced the earlier cabin.1,2

In April 1934 the Missoulian reported that materials for ten new lookout towers on the Lolo had been ordered, and Landowner Mountain was named as one of the locations.2

Several people who staffed the site are named in the sources. In September 1935 two Missoulian items named Erwin as the lookout on Landowner peak and reported that Lester Ellingson had come back from the post.2 Carl Creagar left in August 1939 to work as lookout there, near Alberton, according to the Ravalli Republican.2 The firelookout.com page lists Clarence Hoepfner in 1957, Alfred Oberst in 1958 and Jim Freer in 1959.1

The site was abandoned in 1967, according to firelookout.com.1 In 2000 a wildfire destroyed both structures on the ridge.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list still marks the tower as gone.3 A Missoulian story on the loss near Superior has a subhead saying ground crews could not safely work the site.4

No source we read describes what remains on the ridge today, or whether the public can reach it. Anyone planning a visit should check with the Lolo National Forest first.

  1. Landowner Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/landowner.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Landowner Mountain - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (Montana), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/landowner-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Historic lookout succumbs near Superior, The Missoulian, https://missoulian.com/article_8c79103e-9caa-5106-b990-6b76a322186e.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: design, height, 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.