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Fire lookout · Mineral County, Montana

Little Joe Mountain

Also known as Little Joe Peak

Mineral County, MT lookout on Little Joe Peak: cabin and platform tower from the 1920s, a 1969 tower moved to Williams Peak in 1977 and reported standing there in May 2026.

Moved: The structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from. Tower and cab moved from Little Joe to Williams Peak in 1977; the structure stands there. No source describes what remains on the Little Joe summit.

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
Not staffed (as of undated)

Facts

Status
Moved
Type
Cab on a tower53-foot treated timber tower with R-6 flat cab (built 1969 at Little Joe)The design: R-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1921
Height
53 ft (16.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest for the Little Joe site (firelookout.com); Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks administers the Williams Peak site (NHLR)
Land
Federal land
Location
Mineral County, Montana
Coordinates
47.27963, −115.17345
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-little-joe-mountain

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.

The structure was moved. This view is from the position Firefinder shows for this record, at its recorded height.

Downloads about 4.4 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

  1. 1921 BuiltNovember 1921 newspaper item, quoted on Forest Lookouts, says towers were being built at Tamarack Point and Little Joe. firelookout.com dates the first log cabin and platform tower to the 1920s.Sources: montanalookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
  2. 1927 EventAugust 1927: lightning struck near the tower; the lookout could not be reached by telephone for two hours.Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1939 Replaced by a new structureA 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab followed the early cabin and platform tower.Source: firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1939 and 1955
  5. 1955 StaffedFirst of eight named lookout workers, 1955 to 1967 (firelookout.com 'Known lookout personnel' list).Source: firelookout.com
  6. 1967 EventCab on display at the 1967 scout jamboree in Idaho before being placed on the tower.Sources: firelookout.com, nhlr.org
  7. 1969 Built53-foot treated timber tower with R-6 flat cab built at Little Joe.Sources: firelookout.com, nhlr.org
  8. 1977 MovedTower and cab moved to Williams Peak, replacing an older 30-foot 1934 tower with L-4 cab there.Sources: firelookout.com, nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  9. TodayMovedThe structure was moved. The map shows where it stands now; the timeline says where it came from. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Little Joe Mountain, also called Little Joe Peak, sits in Mineral County, Montana, inside the Lolo National Forest.1,2 Our two sources disagree on how far it lies from St. Regis. One puts it four miles southwest, and the other says five.1,2

The peak got a log cabin and a platform tower in the 1920s.1 In November 1921 the Great Falls Tribune reported, as quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, that new lookouts were going up at Tamarack Point and at Little Joe.2 A 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab followed in 1939.1

An August 1927 Independent Record item, also quoted on that page, reported lightning near the tower and concern for the lookout's safety after he could not be reached by telephone for two hours.2 The firelookout.com page names eight people who worked the lookout between 1955 and 1967, from Daniel Craver in 1955 to Terrance Cox in 1967.1

In 1967 the cab was on display at a scout jamboree in Idaho before it was placed on the tower.1,3 In 1969 a 53-foot treated timber tower with an R-6 flat cab was built at Little Joe.1,3

In 1977 the tower and cab were moved to Williams Peak, where they replaced an older 30-foot tower from 1934.1,3,4 The Little Joe summit lost its lookout that year.1

Today the structure stands at Williams Peak, according to a May 2026 radio activation report on pnwsota.org.5 The National Historic Lookout Register places that lookout in Fish Creek State Park in Mineral County, and says Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks administers the site.3 The firelookout.com page adds that the lookout has gone unstaffed for many years and now stands on state land.4 The 2026 report says the Williams Peak summit is reached by a gated road, FS-7721.5 No source we read says whether the tower is open to visitors, so ask the managing agency before going up. Nothing we read describes what, if anything, remains at the Little Joe summit today.

  1. Little Joe Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/littlejoe.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Little Joe Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/little-joe-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Williams Peak Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mt/williams-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Williams Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, http://www.firelookout.com/mt/williamspk.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Williams Peak, MT, May 2026, pnwsota.org, https://pnwsota.org/activation-reports/ae7ap/2026-06-03/williams-peak-mt-may-2026 (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.