FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Mineral County, Montana

Mineral Ridge

Lolo National Forest L-4 tower near St. Regis, Montana, built 1937 and destroyed 1973; listed as gone, and no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Firelookout.com says destroyed in 1973; the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks it as gone

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 towerL-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1937
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Mineral County, Montana
Coordinates
47.44680, −115.26510
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-mineral-ridge

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 4.0 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. 1937 BuiltFirelookout.com lists it as an L-4 tower built in 1937Source: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1937 and 1973
  3. 1973 DestroyedFirelookout.com says 'Destroyed 1973'; the page gives no causeSource: firelookout.com
  4. 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.

Mineral Ridge is a former fire lookout site in the Lolo National Forest, about 11 miles northwest of St. Regis, in Mineral County, Montana.1 Firelookout.com gives its elevation as 5,500 feet.1

The lookout was an L-4 tower, built in 1937.1 Firelookout.com says it was destroyed in 1973, and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks it as gone.1,2

None of the cited sources describes what, if anything, remains on the ridge today, or whether the public can reach the site.

  1. Mineral Ridge Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/mineralridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. 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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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.