FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Missoula County, Montana

Richmond

A 1929 pole platform and tent cabin on Richmond Peak in the Lolo National Forest; the 20-foot L-4 tower of 1935 was destroyed in 1965.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1965; no source describes 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
Cab on a tower20-foot pole L-4 tower; site first established in 1929 with a pole platform and tent cabinThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Missoula County, Montana
Coordinates
47.31667, −113.49585
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-richmond

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 4.1 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. 1929 EventEstablished with a 20-foot pole platform and tent cabinSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1935 Built20-foot pole L-4 towerSource: firelookout.com
  3. No record between 1935 and 1965
  4. 1965 DestroyedDestroyed, per firelookout.comSource: 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.

Richmond Peak lies in the Lolo National Forest, about 10 miles north of Seeley Lake in Missoula County, Montana. The page gives its elevation as 6,780 feet.1

The site was established in 1929 with a 20-foot pole platform and a tent cabin. The 20-foot pole L-4 tower was built in 1935.1

A circa 1959 photograph in the University of Montana's Bud Moore collection depicts the lookout from the period when Moore was helping Ranger Horace Godfrey. The catalog entry says it appears to be a 20-foot tower.2

The firelookout.com page says the lookout was destroyed in 1965.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list of Montana lookouts marks Richmond as a tower that is gone.3

No source we read describes what remains at the site today, or whether the peak is open to the public. Ask the Lolo National Forest before going up.

  1. Richmond Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/richmond.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Richmond Peak Lookout, Montana History Portal, University of Montana Mansfield Library, https://www.mtmemory.org/nodes/view/67280 (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. 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.