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Fire lookout · Cascade County, Montana

Porphyry Lookout

Also known as Porphyry Peak

Current 40-foot R-6 timber lookout on Porphyry Peak, Lewis and Clark National Forest, staffed every summer; sources disagree on whether the first tower dates from 1933 or 1937.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Staffed during fire season

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot treated timber tower with R-6 flat cabThe designs: R-6, L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
8,194 ft (2,498 m)
Agency
US Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Cascade County, Montana
Coordinates
46.83820, −110.71817
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-porphyry

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1933 BuiltTwo 1933 newspaper items, quoted on Forest Lookouts, describe a 40-foot tower built on Porphyry Peak; the Register and firelookout.com date first development to 1937Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1935 FireLookout on Porphyry Mountain first noticed a fire in the Moose Creek area, a blind spot for the Helena lookoutsSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1937 BuiltFirst developed with a 40-foot pole L-4 tower, per the Register and firelookout.comSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  4. 1946 FirePorphyry and Williams Mountain lookouts reported a fire near Black Butte; a county crew was sent to fight itSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1952 StaffedDon and Adair Peterson, married the previous June, were Forest Service fire lookouts here; no fires spotted yet at the time of the articleSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1960 Built'Built' field on NHLR detail pageSource: NHLR register entry
  7. 1960 Replaced by a new structureThe present 40-foot treated timber tower with R-6 flat cab replaced the earlier towerSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  8. No record between 1960 and 2022
  9. 2022 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered April 12, 2022; nominated by Kyle StetlerSource: nhlr.org
  10. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Porphyry Lookout stands on Porphyry Peak in the Lewis and Clark National Forest.1 The Register puts it in Cascade County,2 and a National Geodetic Survey station description reproduced on the Forest Lookouts site places the station on the divide between Cascade and Meagher counties.3 The firelookout.com page says it sits about six miles south of Neihart,1 but an August 1968 item quoted on the Forest Lookouts site puts the station eight miles south of Neihart.3

Sources disagree about when the first tower went up. Two 1933 newspaper items quoted on the Forest Lookouts site describe a 40-foot tower being built that October and reported as built by December.3 The Register and firelookout.com instead say the site was first developed in 1937 with a 40-foot pole L-4 tower.2,1 An October 1937 article says the Forest Service was putting lookouts on 50-foot towers in the Lewis and Clark forest, with four towers completed or nearly so, and one of them on Porphyry Peak.3

The present tower, a 40-foot treated timber structure with an R-6 flat cab, replaced the first one in 1960.2,1 The Forest Lookouts site gives the same year, and the survey note says the tower was constructed in 1959 and 1960.3

In July 1935 the lookout on Porphyry Mountain first noticed a fire in the Moose Creek area, which the Helena lookouts could not see.3 In August 1946 the lookouts at Porphyry and Williams Mountain reported a fire near Black Butte, and a county crew went out to fight it.3 In September 1952 a Greeley Tribune item, reprinted on the Forest Lookouts site, described Don and Adair Peterson, who had married the previous June and were Forest Service fire lookouts on the tower. The article said they had not yet spotted any fires.3

The Register accepted the lookout on April 12, 2022, on the nomination of Kyle Stetler.2 Both the Register and firelookout.com say it is staffed every summer.2,1 None of the sources I read mention a move, closure or damage to the tower. They also do not say whether visitors may climb it, so ask the Lewis and Clark National Forest before going up.

  1. Porphyry Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/porphyry.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Porphyry Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mt/porphyry-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Porphyry Peak, Forest Lookouts (montanalookouts.weebly.com), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/porphyry-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Porphyry Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Porphyry Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Porphyry in 1937
Porphyry in 1937 (1937)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service and Fire Lookout Museum, via firelookout.com · source
Porphyry in 1946
Porphyry in 1946 (1946)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service and Fire Lookout Museum, via firelookout.com · source
Porphyry in 1969
Porphyry in 1969 (1969)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service and Fire Lookout Museum, via firelookout.com · source
Porphyry in 1996
Porphyry in 1996 (1996)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service and Fire Lookout Museum, via firelookout.com · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the year it was built.

    • NHLR: 1960
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1937

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: design, height, staffing, photos, 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
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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.