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Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Ninemile Point

Flathead County, MT tower 8 miles north of Columbia Falls: built 1934 as a 30-ft pole L-4, staffed through 1971, destroyed 1974 per one source. Sources disagree on height and fate.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1974 per firelookout.com; the Forest Lookouts page gives no date; no source 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
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot pole L-4 tower per firelookout.com; a 1971 newspaper calls the tower 35 feetThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
35 ft (10.7 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
48.49478, −114.15567
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-ninemile-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 4.0 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. 1934 Built30-foot pole L-4 tower about 1.25 miles NNW of Spoon Lake (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.com
  2. 1940 StaffedOrville Moen stationed on the lookout (August 26, 1940 carrier pigeon report)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1940 and 1955
  4. 1955 StaffedNewly married Phillip Hodapp Jr. and wife to spend the summer at Nine Mile lookout (Hungry Horse News, July 1, 1955)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1957 StaffedMr. & Mrs. Floyd Domoth listed as lookout personnelSource: firelookout.com
  6. 1971 StaffedKaren Hey serves as Forest Service lookout; newspaper gives the tower as 35 feet (Daily Inter Lake, August 23, 1971)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1974 DestroyedDestroyed per firelookout.com; Forest Lookouts gives no dateSource: firelookout.com
  8. 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 Nine Mile Point lookout stood in Flathead County, about eight miles north of Columbia Falls, on the Flathead National Forest.1,2

Firelookout.com dates the tower to 1934. It describes a 30-foot pole L-4 tower about 1.25 miles north-northwest of Spoon Lake.2 The Forest Lookouts page quotes a 1971 newspaper that calls the tower 35 feet tall, so the two sources disagree on its height.3

Sources name several people who staffed the lookout.2,3 In August 1940, a carrier pigeon with a metal leg band landed on a stump at the lookout while Orville Moen was stationed there.3 In 1955 a Hungry Horse News item said a newly married couple, Phillip Hodapp Jr. and his wife, would spend the summer at Nine Mile lookout.3 Firelookout.com lists Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Domoth as lookout personnel in 1957.2 In 1971, a Daily Inter Lake item said Karen Hey lived and worked in the tower that summer while holding a Forest Service lookout post.3

Firelookout.com says the tower was destroyed in 1974.2 The Forest Lookouts page closes with the single word "Removed" and gives no date, so the two sources describe its end differently.3

No source we read describes what remains at the site today.

  1. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Ninemile Point Fire Lookout Tower, Fire Lookout (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/mt/ninemilepoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Nine Mile Point, Forest Lookouts (Ron Kemnow), quoting Montana newspapers, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/nine-mile-point.html (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, height, 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.