FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Lincoln County, Montana

Poorman

Kootenai NF L-4 cab built 1931, staffed until 1942, destroyed 1977; FFLA list marks it gone; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1977 according to the firelookout.com page; the FFLA Montana list marks it gone. No source describes what remains at 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
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kootenai National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Lincoln County, Montana
Coordinates
48.97609, −114.92879
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-poorman

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 4.4 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. 1931 BuiltL-4 cab built in 1931, per firelookout.com pageSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1942 Last staffedStaffed until 1942, per firelookout.com pageSource: firelookout.com
  3. No record between 1942 and 1977
  4. 1977 DestroyedUltimately destroyed in 1977, per firelookout.com page; cause not givenSource: firelookout.com
  5. 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 Poorman lookout was an L-4 cab built in 1931 in the Kootenai National Forest, eight miles north-northeast of Eureka in Lincoln County, Montana.1 The firelookout.com page gives its elevation as 7,832 feet.1 A Lincoln County list of Forest lookouts also uses the name Poorman Mountain.2 Working with the U.S. Forest Service, the Forest Fire Lookout Association completed a national inventory that found more than 8,000 lookouts in 49 states at one time.3

According to the page, the cabin was manned until 1942 and was destroyed in 1977. The page gives no cause.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list files it under Ground at 48.97609, -114.92879 and marks it gone.4

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, so visitors should not expect a cabin to be standing.

  1. Poorman Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/poorman.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Lincoln County - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (montanalookouts.weebly.com), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/lincoln-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Welcome to the FFLOS, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/ (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, 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.