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Fire lookout · Missoula County, Montana

Plateau Peak

Lolo National Forest lookout in Missoula County: a 1934 50-foot L-4 pole tower, a cupola trailer from 1970, now gone; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Forest Lookouts index marks the tower gone; the firelookout.com page heads the lookout R.I.P. 1934-1970

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 tower50-foot pole tower of the L-4 type; pop-up cupola trailer used from 1970The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Missoula County, Montana
Coordinates
47.00059, −114.52344
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-plateau-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 3.6 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 BuiltEstablished in 1934 with a 50-foot pole L-4 towerSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1934 EventMissoulian notice of April 1934: materials ordered for ten new lookout towers, one site named Plateau mountain in the Superior districtSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1970
  4. 1970 EventPop-up cupola trailer used beginning 1970Source: firelookout.com
  5. 1976 ClosedTrailer use discontinued by 1976Source: firelookout.com
  6. 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.

Plateau Peak's tower, a 50-foot pole structure of the L-4 type, went up in 1934.1 The Missoulian reported in April 1934 that materials for ten new lookout towers had been ordered for the Lolo forest, and that one of the sites was to be Plateau mountain in the Superior district.2 Forest Lookouts lists Plateau Mountain and Plateau Peak at the same township, range and section, Lolo National Forest 14N-23W-4 in Missoula County, so we read the two names as one site.2,3

The site's page says a pop-up cupola trailer came into use in 1970 and was out of use by 1976.1 The page's heading dates the lookout from 1934 to 1970, and the Montana index lists the tower as gone.1,4

No source we found describes what remains at the site today, or whether the public can reach it.1,2,3,4

  1. Plateau Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/plateaupeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Plateau Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/plateau-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Missoula County, Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/missoula-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. 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. 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.