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Fire lookout · Powell County, Montana

Monture Hill Lookout

Also known as Montour Mountain (Hill)

Powell County 30-ft pole tower, first built about 1935 and replaced in 1945 (or 1941); unused for many years, now abandoned on private land with no public access.

Private land

No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. private property; NHLR states there is no public access to the site

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Private land. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerpresent 30-foot pole tower with L-4 cab; first tower had an open-air 5x5 foot cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
4,612 ft (1,406 m)
Agency
private property (per NHLR)
Land
Unknown
Location
Powell County, Montana
Coordinates
47.03446, −113.19787
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-monture-hill

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.

Downloads about 3.7 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. 1935 Builtfirst tower: 30-foot pole with open-air 5x5 foot cab, built about 1935Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1945 Built'Built' field on NHLR detail pageSource: NHLR register entry
  3. 1945 Replaced by a new structurepresent 30-foot L-4 pole tower; NHLR gives 1945, firelookout.com gives 1941; an April 1945 newspaper item describes a new tower under constructionSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1945 and 2022
  5. 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout Registerregistered April 13, 2022 as US 1553, MT 110; nominated by Kyle StetlerSource: nhlr.org
  6. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Monture Hill Lookout, also called Montour Mountain, stands in Powell County, Montana, at about 4,600 feet.1,2,3 The present structure is a 30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab.1,2

The first lookout on the site had an open-air cab on a 30-foot pole, and both the Register and firelookout.com date it to about 1935.1,2 The replacement is where the sources part ways. The Register gives 1945 and firelookout.com gives 1941.1,2 A Helena Independent item from April 1945, quoted by Forest Lookouts, describes a new tower under construction, 30 feet high with 14-by-14-foot living quarters.3 That item says the new tower would bring the total to five in a section covering about a million acres.3 It also places the tower seven miles southwest of Ovando, while firelookout.com gives the location as 16 miles southeast of Seeley Lake.2,3

The Forest Lookouts page also quotes a July 1921 item that does not name the mountain. It describes a Missoula National Forest fire assistant inspecting a lookout site, with a telephone line to the summit to be built next.3

The builder is named differently in each source. The Register says the Blackfoot-Clearwater Timber Protective Association, firelookout.com says the Blackfeet Fire Protective Association, and the 1945 item says the Blackfoot Forest Protective association.1,2,3

Both the Register and firelookout.com say the tower sat unused for many years.1,2 The sources read name no fire it watched. The Register now describes the tower as abandoned, on private property with no public access.1

The Register accepted the tower on April 13, 2022, as US 1553, MT 110, after a nomination by Kyle Stetler.1 Because the land is private and the Register reports no public access, visitors should not plan to go up it.1

  1. Monture Hill Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mt/monture-hill-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Monture Hill Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/monturehill.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Montour Mountain (Hill), Forest Lookouts (montanalookouts.weebly.com), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/montour-mountain-hill.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Monture Hill Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Monture Hill Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Monture Hill in 1936
Monture Hill in 1936 (1936)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum and Gary Weber, via firelookout.com · source
Monture Hill in 2001
Monture Hill in 2001 (2001)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum and Gary Weber, via firelookout.com · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the year it was built.

    • NHLR: 1945
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1935

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: design, height, photos, 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
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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, height, status, agency, access, 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.