FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

Penrose Peak

Sanders County ground lookout on Penrose Peak, set up as a ready-cut L-4 cab in 1930; listed as gone, with no source describing the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The lookout is gone. No source gives a removal date or describes the summit 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 cab (ready-cut house)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
47.46355, −115.14508
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-penrose-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 3.7 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. 1930 BuiltReady-cut house packed up in July 1930 and installed by late September 1930; the listing gives a 1930 L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1932 StaffedIn August 1932 the lookout was sent to a fire, was hurt in a fall on the way, and replacements were sent outSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Penrose Peak is a summit in the Lolo National Forest, about 12 miles west of Plains in Sanders County.1 A ready-cut lookout house was set up on the peak in 1930.2 In July the Sanders County Independent-Ledger reported that the house was being packed up to the summit.2 By late September the paper said four ready-cut houses had been installed, including those at Big Hole and Penrose Peaks in the Plains district.2 The listing calls the Penrose cab an L-4 from 1930.1

In August 1932 the Penrose lookout was sent to a fire on the C. C. Divide and fell about five feet off a windfall on the way. He was brought to Plains and sent to Thornton Hospital in Missoula, and replacements were sent out.2

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the Penrose lookout as gone.1,3 Neither the listing nor the newspaper items give a date for its removal or say what became of the cab.1,2 No source describes what, if anything, remains on the summit today, or whether the peak is open to visitors.

  1. Penrose Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/penrosepeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Penrose Peak - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Montana Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/penrose-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: 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.