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Fire lookout · Missoula County, Montana

Sheep Mountain

Missoula County Sheep Mountain lookout, about 10 miles NE of Missoula: L-4 cab, staffed in 1934, listed gone; a 1966 item conflicts with the gone-by-1962 date.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. FFLA lists it as gone and firelookout.com says gone by 1962, but a 1966 newspaper item describes the lookout as staffed

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 cabinThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Missoula County, Montana
Coordinates
46.94777, −113.80678
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-sheep-mountain-3

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 4.2 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. 1925 Eventnewspaper mentions a forest lookout station on Sheep Mountain east of MissoulaSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1930 EventDaily Missoulian reports a new lookout to be built on the peak that summerSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1933 Builtfirelookout.com dates the L-4 cab to 1933; newspaper dates differSource: firelookout.com
  4. 1934 StaffedCarl Rooney sent to the lookout in May; Ralph Hogan named lookout in JulySource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1940 Abandonedsource gives only the decade: Abandoned 1940sSource: firelookout.com
  6. No record between 1940 and 1962
  7. 1962 Eventlisted as gone by 1962; the source does not say howSources: firelookout.com, firelookout.org
  8. 1966 Staffednewspaper item names J. Penkake as assigned to the lookout north of Missoula; conflicts with the 1940s and 1962 datesSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  9. 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.

Sheep Mountain rises about 10 miles northeast of Missoula, in the Lolo National Forest.1 The lookout there was an L-4 cabin, and firelookout.com dates it to 1933.1 Newspaper items point to different dates.1,2 In April 1930 the Daily Missoulian reported that a new lookout would be built on the peak that summer, behind Jumbo, and a 1925 item already mentions a forest lookout station on Sheep Mountain east of town.2 The sources do not agree on when the cabin went up.1,2

The Missoulian named people at the lookout in 1934.2 In May, Carl Rooney was sent to the Sheep Mountain lookout.2 In July, Ralph Hogan was the lookout on the mountain.2

Firelookout.com says the cabin was abandoned in the 1940s and was gone by 1962.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks the Missoula County peak as gone.3 A 1966 newspaper item, though, says J. Penkake was assigned to the lookout north of Missoula, which does not fit a 1962 date.2 The sources do not settle which account is right.1,2

The name is shared with another peak.4 A Sheep Mountain about 15 miles southwest of Superior, in Mineral County, had a lookout built in 1928.4 That is a different site, and this story does not cover it.

No source I read describes what, if anything, remains of the lookout on Sheep Mountain today, or whether the public can reach the peak.1,3

  1. Sheep Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/sheepmtn369.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Sheep Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Missoula County entries), montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/sheep-mountain1.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Sheep Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Mineral County entry), montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/sheep-mountain.html (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.