Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana
Table Hill
Flathead NF lookout cab listed as built 1937 on a southwest spur; abandoned and gone. No source describes the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as abandoned and gone
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
- Type
- Ground-level cabL-4 cab on the end of a southwest spurThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1937
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Flathead National Forest
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Flathead County, Montana
- Coordinates
- 47.87132, −113.13850
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mt-table-hill
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 3.9 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
- 1937 BuiltL-4 cab atop the end of a southwest spur (firelookout.com listing)Source: firelookout.com
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.
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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Table Hill had a lookout cab on the end of a southwest spur, and a listing dates it to 1937.1 That cab was an L-4.1 The Forest Service describes the L-4 as a 14-by-14-foot pre-cut house, produced between 1929 and 1953.2 By 1939 the Flathead National Forest had 147 lookout buildings, along with 247 other buildings.3
The site lies 18 miles east-southeast of the Spotted Bear Ranger Station.1 A historical overview of the Flathead National Forest describes that station as being in the South Fork, reachable by road.3
The listing says the cab was abandoned and is now gone.1 The association's Montana list shows the site as a ground lookout that is gone.4 Writing about the Bob Marshall Wilderness, the same overview says the extensive fire lookout network there has been almost completely dismantled.3
No source describes the Table Hill site today or says whether the public can reach it.
- Table Hill Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/tablehill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Lookout Styles, USDA Forest Service, Nez Perce National Forest, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259212 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Trails of the Past: Historical Overview of the Flathead National Forest, npshistory.com, https://npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/1/flathead/history/chap6.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- 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
- Trails of the Past: Historical Overview of the Flathead National Forest (chapter 6) (npshistory.com) (opens another site)
- Lookout Styles (USDA Forest Service, Nez Perce National Forest) (opens another site)
- FFLA Montana lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Table Hill on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.