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Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

McCaffery

Flathead County, MT tower: a 1929 crow's nest, then a 40-foot pole L-4 tower in 1934; named staff 1940-1967; destroyed 1976 per firelookout.com. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. firelookout.com says destroyed in 1976; the Forest Lookouts page carries an undated Removed label; no source describes the site today

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 tower40' pole L-4 tower with a 14-foot square cab (1951 description)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1929
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
48.11091, −114.06709
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-mccaffery

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 4.1 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. 1929 BuiltCrow's nest (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.com
  2. 1934 Replaced by a new structure40-foot pole L-4 tower, after the 1929 crow's nestSource: firelookout.com
  3. 1937 EventGuard training school held at the Bigfork ranger station and the lookout for several weeksSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1940 StaffedRay Wedge detailed to the lookoutSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1951 StaffedDouglas and Janet Dean worked the lookout that seasonSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1952 StaffedMr. & Mrs. Carl Braendlin listed as lookout personnelSource: firelookout.com
  7. 1953 Fire15-acre Mill Creek fire in the Swan Range, spotted by the lookout near Echo LakeSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  8. 1957 StaffedMr. and Mrs. Neil Hohisel listed (item misspells the site as McCafferty)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  9. 1958 StaffedMr. & Mrs. Don Schlitz listed (the Forest Lookouts page spells it Schiltz)Sources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  10. 1962 ClosedLookouts at McCaffery and Mission temporarily pulled down after rainSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  11. 1967 StaffedMary Margaret Homer listed as lookout personnelSource: firelookout.com
  12. 1976 Destroyedfirelookout.com: 'Destroyed 1976'; the Forest Lookouts page has an undated Removed labelSource: firelookout.com
  13. 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.

The McCaffery lookout stood in the Flathead National Forest, about 12 miles southeast of Kalispell in Flathead County, Montana, at an elevation of 3,300 feet.1

Firelookout.com dates the first structure to 1929, a crow's nest, and a 40-foot pole L-4 tower that followed in 1934.1 A 1951 newspaper item quoted on the Forest Lookouts page says most Forest Service lookouts sat on towers. It describes the McCaffery cab as 14 feet square and 40 feet off the ground.2

The site was also used for training.2 A 1937 item says a guard training school had been running at the Bigfork ranger station and the McCaffery lookout for several weeks.2

Named staff appear in the sources from 1940 to 1967.1,2 Ray Wedge was assigned to the lookout in 1940, and Douglas and Janet Dean, a married couple, worked it in 1951.2 A 1957 item names Mr. and Mrs. Neil Hohisel of Detroit.2 Firelookout.com lists Carl Braendlin and his wife for 1952, Don Schlitz and his wife for 1958, and Mary Margaret Homer for 1967.1 The Forest Lookouts page spells the 1958 name Schiltz.2

In 1953 a 15-acre fire on Mill Creek in the Swan Range, almost 13 miles east of Kalispell, was spotted by the McCaffery lookout near Echo Lake.2 The newspaper item ties the blaze to a lightning storm on July 20 and says the lookout saw it at 3:15 p.m. on a Thursday.2

In September 1962, after a half inch of rain, the McCaffery and Mission lookouts were temporarily pulled down.2 The item said they could be manned again if the rain held off and burning indexes rose.2

Firelookout.com says the tower was destroyed in 1976.1 The Forest Lookouts page carries a "Removed" label with no year, so the two sources describe the end in different words.2

The Montana list marks the tower as gone.3 No source we read describes what remains at the site today or whether the public can reach it.

  1. McCaffery Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/mccaffery.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. McCaffery - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts (Montana), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/mccaffery.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. 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: 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.