FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Mineral County, Montana

Tamarack Hill

Mineral County, MT lookout near St. Regis: a tower in use by 1927, an L-4 tower dated 1936 by firelookout.com, now gone; no site description found.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. firelookout.com and the Forest Fire Lookout Association list the tower as gone; no removal date given

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 towerL-4 tower dated 1936 by firelookout.com; a tower already in use by 1927 per montanalookouts quotesThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1921
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Mineral County, Montana
Coordinates
47.33860, −115.03934
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-tamarack-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 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. 1921 BuiltLookout towers being built at Tamarack point (Great Falls Tribune item, November 1921, quoted on montanalookouts)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1927 BuiltLog cabin of 12 x 14 built in the fall for living quarters, replacing a tent camp (quoted on montanalookouts)Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1927 EventLightning struck near the tower in August; Emerick knocked down twice; telephone fuses blown outSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1927 StaffedGene Emerick stationed on Tamarack Lookout near St. RegisSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1932 StaffedWalter Lake of Noxon spent the summer as the Forest Service lookout on Tamarack peakSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1936 BuiltL-4 tower per firelookout.com; the 1927 accounts already describe a tower in useSource: firelookout.com
  7. 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 (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Tamarack Hill lies about four miles northeast of St. Regis, in Mineral County, Montana, at an elevation of 4,202 feet.1 The site is on the Lolo National Forest.1 Early accounts also call the place Tamarack point, Tamarac lookout and Tamarack peak.2

In November 1921 a Lolo forest fire assistant headed to St. Regis, where a newspaper item said lookout towers were being built at Tamarack point.2 By June 1927 a cabin was going up on the lookout, and that fall Gene Emerick and Walt Hahn built a log cabin measuring 12 x 14 for living quarters, replacing a tent camp.2

In August 1927 lightning struck near the lookout.2 Gene Emerick, who was stationed there, was knocked down twice, and the telephone fuses blew out.2 Walter Lake of Noxon spent the summer of 1932 as the Forest Service lookout on Tamarack peak.2

Firelookout.com gives 1936 for an L-4 tower here and marks it gone, with no date for its removal.1 The 1927 accounts already describe a tower in use, so the 1936 date does not line up with them.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list also marks the tower as gone.3

I found no source describing what remains at the site today or whether the public can reach it.

  1. Tamarack Hill Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/tamarackhill.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Tamarack Hill, Forest Lookouts Montana, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/tamarack-hill.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, 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.