FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Missoula County, Montana

Mormon Peak

Lolo National Forest L-4 lookout house on a 30-foot pole tower, built 1938 near Lolo, Montana, and destroyed 1980; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Firelookout.com says destroyed in 1980; 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 lookout house on a 30-foot pole towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1938
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Missoula County, Montana
Coordinates
46.72575, −114.16813
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-mormon-peak

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. 1938 BuiltFirelookout.com says built in 1938; the state form says a 1931-plan L-4 lookout house was erected on a pole tower in 1938Sources: firelookout.com, mhs.mt.gov
  2. No record between 1938 and 1962
  3. 1962 StaffedFirelookout.com names Mrs. Robert Haugen as known lookout personnel for 1962Source: firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1962 and 1980
  5. 1980 DestroyedFirelookout.com says the tower was destroyed in 1980; the page gives no causeSource: 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.

Mormon Peak is in the Lolo National Forest, about 4 miles southwest of Lolo, in Missoula County, Montana.1 Firelookout.com gives its elevation as 6,017 feet.1

The lookout went up in 1938.1 That year a lookout house built to a 1931 plan was set on a pole tower, according to a Montana State Historic Preservation Office form on fire lookouts.2 Firelookout.com describes the tower as a 30-foot pole tower.1

The only lookout worker the firelookout.com page names is Mrs. Robert Haugen, listed for 1962.1

The tower was destroyed in 1980, according to firelookout.com, and the Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the site as gone.1,3

None of the cited sources describes what, if anything, remains on the peak today. A Gaia GPS listing says a moderate one-way trail in the forest goes by the peak, so hikers can pass it on that route.4 The cited sources do not say whether the old lookout site itself is open to visitors.

  1. Mormon Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/mormonpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, Montana State Historic Preservation Office, https://mhs.mt.gov/Shpo/docs/MPDs/MT_ID_FireLookoutsMPD.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Mormon Peak, Gaia GPS, https://www.gaiagps.com/hike/417944/mormon-peak/ (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, 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.