FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Missoula County, Montana

Sliderock Lookout (now at the Fort Missoula Historical Museum)

Also known as Fort Missoula Historical Museum, Sliderock Lookout

Granite County, MT: lookout built about 1930 (1935 per firelookout.com); moved to the Fort Missoula Historical Museum in 1983 (1984 per firelookout.com) and displayed there.

Original site: Sliderock

Visit & stay

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

Access

Open to the public. Displayed on the grounds of the Fort Missoula Historical Museum; hours and climbing rules are not in the sources read

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
The museum's page refers to standing on the landing between the two flights of stairs; ask the museum whether climbing is allowed
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerPre-packaged L-4 lookout made in Columbia Falls, MT; 40-foot pole tower as originally built, per firelookout.comThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo/Admin. Deer Lodge National Forest (original site); Forest Service collection named as donor to the museum
Land
Unknown
Location
Missoula County, Montana
Coordinates
46.84291, −114.06427
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-sliderock-at-fort-missoula-historical-museum

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.

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. 1919 EventSite first developed with a 35-foot pole platform and a miniature log cabin (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.com
  2. 1930 BuiltManufactured in Columbia Falls in 1930; the museum says built about 1930Sources: buildings.fortmissoulamuseum.org, treasurestate.com
  3. 1935 Builtfirelookout.com dates the 40-foot pole L-4 tower to 1935; conflicts with the museum and markerSource: firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1935 and 1983
  5. 1983 MovedDismantled at Sliderock Mountain and moved to the Fort Missoula museum; firelookout.com gives 1984 for the cab and top two-thirds onlySources: buildings.fortmissoulamuseum.org, treasurestate.com
  6. Date unknown MovedMoved from Sliderock to the Fort Missoula Historical Museum.Source: FFLA
  7. 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Sliderock was a fire lookout on Sliderock Mountain, 21 miles north-northwest of Philipsburg in Granite County, Montana.1 Ron Kemnow's page lists the Lolo/Admin. Deer Lodge National Forest as the agency.2

The site was first developed in 1919 with a 35-foot pole platform and a small scale-model log cabin.1 Firelookout.com says a 40-foot pole L-4 tower was built there in 1935.1 The Fort Missoula museum says the lookout was built about 1930, and a Montana historic marker says it was manufactured in Columbia Falls that year.3,4 The museum adds that similar lookouts were prefabricated and delivered to a four-state region, to be assembled on a tower or on bare ground.3

We found no record of who staffed this lookout or of any fire it watched.

The museum says the lookout was taken apart on its mountain and brought to the museum in 1983, with help from the Friends of the Historical Museum and the Missoula Chapter of the Society of American Foresters.3 The marker also gives 1983.4 Kemnow's page describes the move from the original site as one to put the lookout on display at Fort Missoula.2 Firelookout.com instead says the cab and top two-thirds went there in 1984.1 The sources disagree on the year and on how much of the lookout was moved.

Today the lookout stands on the museum grounds, on what the marker calls its own "mini-Sliderock" mountain.3,4 According to the marker, the first section of stairs has been removed, so the lookout sits lower than it would have at its original location.4 The museum's page refers to standing on the landing between the two flights of stairs, but we found no hours or climbing rules there. Ask the museum before you go.3

  1. Sliderock Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/sliderock.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Sliderock Mountain, Forest Lookouts, Ron Kemnow, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/sliderock-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Sliderock Lookout, Fort Missoula Buildings, https://buildings.fortmissoulamuseum.org/sliderock-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Sliderock Lookout Tower, Montana Historic Marker, https://treasurestate.com/historic-markers/sliderock-lookout-tower/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: dates, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  3. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, 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.