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Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

Table Top Mountain

Sanders County, MT lookout near Thompson Falls: a 40-foot L-4 tower built in 1932, manned into 1955, destroyed 1963; no site description found.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1963 per firelookout.com; montanalookouts marks it Removed with no date

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 tower40-foot pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1932
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Cabinet National Forest in a 1936 item; firelookout.com lists Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
47.53043, −115.46978
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-table-top-mountain

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 its recorded height.

Downloads about 3.7 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. 1931 EventTelephone line started from Lookout Peak to Table Top Mountain on July 27 (newspaper item quoted on montanalookouts)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1932 Built40-foot pole L-4 tower (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.com
  3. 1934 StaffedJohn Previs named as lookout in July; Berlin Luke to take over until the end of the fire seasonSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1936 StaffedMuggs Huff off the peak after a sprained neck; George Jewett from Noxon replaced himSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1936 and 1954
  6. 1954 StaffedTom Spolar manned the lookout before the main fire danger seasonSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1955 StaffedKurt Whitaker posted; the paper calls Table Top the seventh and final lookout manned in the Thompson Falls ranger districtSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  8. 1963 DestroyedDestroyed 1963 (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.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.

Table Top Mountain rises about seven miles southwest of Thompson Falls, in Sanders County, Montana, at an elevation of 5,749 feet.1 In July 1931 a crew began building a telephone line from Lookout Peak to Table Top Mountain.2 The lookout was a 40-foot pole tower of the L-4 type, put up in 1932.1

Newspaper items quoted on a Montana lookout history page record who worked the peak in several seasons. In 1934 John Previs was the lookout, and Berlin Luke was to take over until the fire season ended.2 In 1936 a lookout named Muggs Huff sprained his neck when he turned his head quickly at a ringing telephone, and George Jewett from Noxon replaced him on the peak.2 In 1954 Tom Spolar manned the lookout ahead of the main fire season.2 In August 1955 a local paper reported that Table Top was the last of the seven lookouts in the Thompson Falls ranger district to be staffed, with Kurt Whitaker posted there.2

Sources differ on the agency. A 1936 item places the lookout on the Cabinet National Forest, and the history page header gives both Cabinet National Forest and Lolo National Forest, while firelookout.com lists only Lolo.2,1

Firelookout.com says the tower was destroyed in 1963.1 Montanalookouts marks the site as removed and gives no date.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list also marks the tower as gone.3

No source I found describes what, if anything, remains on the summit today, or whether the public can reach it.

  1. Table Top Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/tabletopmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Table Top Mountain, Forest Lookouts Montana, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/table-top-mountain.html (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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: agency, ownership, links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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.