Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana
Mount May
Flathead National Forest pole lookout built in 1937 and abandoned in 1949; listed as gone, and no source describes the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1949 and listed as gone. No source we read 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
- Type
- Cab on a tower20-foot pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1937
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Flathead National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Flathead County, Montana
- Coordinates
- 47.99220, −113.01500
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mt-mount-may
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 3.9 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
- 1937 Built20-foot pole L-4 tower, per firelookout.comSource: firelookout.com
- 1949 AbandonedAbandoned in 1949, per firelookout.comSource: firelookout.com
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Mount May sits in the Flathead National Forest, about 24 miles east-northeast of the Spotted Bear Ranger Station.1 The site gives its elevation as 6,919 feet.1 It dates the lookout to 1937 and describes it as a 20-foot pole L-4 tower.1
After the 1910 fire season, the Forest Service began placing fire-watch stations on high summits.2 The Forest kept putting up more lookouts, the 1930s especially, and by 1939 it counted 147 lookouts and towers.2
The site says the lookout was abandoned in 1949 and is now gone.1 The Forest Association's Montana list also marks Mount May as gone.3
No source we read describes what remains at the site today, or whether it is open to the public. Anyone curious should ask the Flathead National Forest about access before going up the mountain.
- Mt. May Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/mtmay.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Trails of the Past: Historical Overview of the Flathead National Forest, Montana, 1800-1960, Chapter 9, npshistory.com, https://npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/1/flathead/history/chap9.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- 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
- Trails of the Past: Historical Overview of the Flathead National Forest, Montana, 1800-1960, Chapter 9 (npshistory.com) (opens another site)
- FFLA Montana lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Mt. May on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.