FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Powder River County, Montana

Liscom Butte

Ground-level Custer NF lookout with a 1958 R-6 flat cab, taken down under a 2009 demolition contract; a one-mile USFS trail now carries its name.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed under a May 2009 demolition contract. firelookout.com says destroyed circa 2009.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. The USFS trail named for the lookout is open to mountain bikes per trail data. No source describes the summit itself.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
USFS trail 4428, about 1 mile, Custer Gallatin National Forest (trail data as summarized by CanIBikeHere)

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabGround-level site (firelookout.org type 'Ground'). firelookout.com lists an R-6 flat cab in 1958.The design: R-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1958
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Custer National Forest (listed as Custer Gallatin National Forest in trail data)
Land
Federal land
Location
Powder River County, Montana
Coordinates
45.74298, −105.97448
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-liscom-butte

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 3.8 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. 1939 Eventfirelookout.com lists a camp on the siteSource: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1939 and 1958
  3. 1958 Builtfirelookout.com lists an R-6 flat cabSource: firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1958 and 2009
  5. 2009 RemovedMay 2009 contract awarded for demolition and removal of the lookout structure; the Arizona chapter report says it was removed under a demolition contractSources: montanalookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.org
  6. 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.

Liscom Butte Lookout stood on Liscom Butte in Powder River County, Montana, about 33 miles northwest of Brodus.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list classes it as a ground site rather than a tower, and marks it gone.2

Firelookout.com records a camp on the site in 1939 and an R-6 flat cab in 1958.1 Both firelookout.com and the Montana lookouts page list the site under Custer National Forest.1,3

The Montana lookouts page records a May 2009 award of a contract to tear the structure down.3 A 2009 Arizona chapter report from the Forest Fire Lookout Association says Liscom Butte was also removed under a demolition contract, and calls it one of only two lookouts lost in the area that year.4 Firelookout.com instead says it was destroyed around 2009.1 The wording differs, but the sources agree that the structure came down in 2009.

No source describes what, if anything, remains on the summit today. A trail guide that draws on Forest Service trail data lists a one-mile trail named Liscom Butte Lookout (trail 4428) in the Custer Gallatin National Forest, and says mountain bikes are allowed there year-round.5 That listing says nothing about the summit itself.

  1. Liscom Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/liscombutte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Liscom Butte - Forest Lookouts, Montana Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/liscom-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Arizona Chapter Report 2009, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/cr-az-2009.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Liscom Butte Lookout - Mountain Bike & E-Bike Trail Guide, CanIBikeHere, https://www.canibikehere.com/trail/montana/custer-gallatin/liscom-butte-lookout (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 Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  4. 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.