FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Mineral County, Montana

Newman Peak

Lolo NF pole L-4 lookout on Newman Peak, dated 1933 and destroyed in 1949; a 1932 item already mentions the lookout. The sources used here do not describe the site now.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

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 towerpole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Mineral County, Montana
Coordinates
47.27159, −115.28310
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-newman-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 4.2 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. 1932 EventMineral Independent item (June 1932) describes a visit to the Newman Peak lookout, a year before the 1933 build dateSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1933 BuiltPole L-4 tower atop the northeast spur, per firelookout.com and the Montana lookouts pageSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1936 StaffedEdwin R. Bennett, forest service lookout at Newman, injured in a fall from his horseSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1939 EventRoad from the Idaho divide to Newman Peak Lookout expected to finish in October 1939Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1949 DestroyedDestroyed in 1949 per both pagesSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.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.

The Newman Peak lookout stood on a northeast spur of Newman Peak, nine miles west of St. Regis in Mineral County, in the Lolo National Forest, at an elevation of 5,601 feet.1 Firelookout.com dates the tower to 1933 and describes it as a pole L-4 design on that spur.1 The Montana lookouts page gives the same design and year and credits them to a source it names only as Kresek.2

A June 1932 Mineral Independent item says a regional Forest Service officer spent two days at the ranger station and the Newman Peak lookout, a year before the 1933 date.2

In 1936 Edwin R. Bennett was the forest service lookout at Newman. He was thrown from his horse, suffered fractures in his thigh and knee, and was left alone in the forest for three hours before help came.2

In October 1939 a road crew led by Hank Gill was expected to finish a road from the Idaho divide to the lookout that week.2

Both pages say the tower was destroyed in 1949.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks the site Tower Gone.3 The sources used here do not describe what remains on the peak today.

  1. Newman Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/newmanpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Newman Peak - Forest Lookouts, montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/newman-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, 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, 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.