FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Puzzle Hills

L-4 cab built in 1932 on the east point two miles northeast of Square Mountain, Flathead National Forest; destroyed in 1960.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1960; no source read describes what remains at the site

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
Trail
The September 2025 Wild Montana hike listing said the route would start at Morrison Creek and pass the site of an old lookout

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1932
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
48.23315, −113.28279
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-puzzle-hills

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 4.0 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. 1932 BuiltL-4 cab built atop the east point, two miles northeast of Square MountainSource: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1932 and 1960
  3. 1960 DestroyedDestroyed in 1960 per firelookout.com; the Forest Fire Lookout Association index lists the site as goneSources: firelookout.com, firelookout.org
  4. 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 Puzzle Hills lookout was an L-4 cab from 1932, set on the east point about two miles northeast of Square Mountain.1 The Forest Lookouts list places the site in the Flathead National Forest, at 29N-13W-34.2

The firelookout.com page says the cab was destroyed in 1960.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association index lists the site as a ground lookout that is gone.3

A Wild Montana group hike in September 2025 was planned as a northward route through the Puzzle Hills that would pass an old lookout site. It was to start at Morrison Creek.4 The listing describes the area as part of a 12,400-acre Slippery Bill–Puzzle Hills recommended wilderness addition to the Great Bear Wilderness.4 It does not say whether the old lookout the group passed is the same site as the 1932 cab.

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

  1. Puzzle Hills Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/mt/puzzle.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Flathead County - Forest Lookouts, montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/flathead-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Puzzle Hills Hike, Wild Montana, https://wildmontana.org/event/puzzle-hills-hike/ (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, visiting details, 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.