FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Moose Point

Flathead County lookout cab from 1931, destroyed in 1957 per firelookout.com; staffed in 1934 and 1951 per newspapers quoted on Forest Lookouts; site today undocumented.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Cab destroyed in 1957 per firelookout.com; no source we read describes what remains at 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
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
521 ft (158.8 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
48.64359, −114.42629
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-moose-point

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 4.3 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. 1931 BuiltL-4 cab, per firelookout.comSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1934 StaffedMan stationed at the lookout during the fire season; a September 22, 1934 item (The Daily Inter Lake, quoted on Forest Lookouts) says the lookout had closed for the yearSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1951
  4. 1951 StaffedFire danger required manning the lookout (Hungry Horse News, quoted on Forest Lookouts)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1957 DestroyedFirelookout.com says destroyed; no cause givenSource: firelookout.com
  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.

Moose Point is a lookout site in Flathead County, about 16 miles north-northwest of Whitefish.1 The site is listed under the Flathead National Forest.1 Firelookout.com dates its L-4 cab to 1931 and says the cab was destroyed in 1957. It does not say how.1

The lookout was staffed in the 1934 fire season.2 The Daily Inter Lake, quoted on the Forest Lookouts site, names Charles Burtsfield as the man stationed there.2 A September 22, 1934 item says the lookout had already closed for the year.2 In August 1951 the Hungry Horse News reported that fire danger had made manning the lookout necessary.2 The same item says Frank Kohoutek hiked the 12 miles to the summit on a Sunday.2

The sources disagree on the elevation. Firelookout.com gives 7,531 feet, and the 1951 item says 7,521 feet.1,2

The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks the lookout as gone.3 We found no source describing what, if anything, remains at the site now, or whether visitors may go there. Check with the Flathead National Forest before you plan a trip.

  1. Moose Point Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/moosepoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Moose Point - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/moose-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana lookout list, 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, 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.