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Fire lookout · Missoula County, Montana

Telephone Butte

Lolo NF lookout in Missoula County: a 30-foot pole L-4 tower listed for 1934, abandoned in 1947 and gone; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as gone; abandoned 1947; no source describes what remains

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 tower30-foot pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Missoula County, Montana
Coordinates
46.85152, −114.34578
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-telephone-butte

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 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. 1934 BuiltRecord lists a 30-foot pole L-4 tower for 1934Source: firelookout.com
  2. 1947 AbandonedRecord says abandoned 1947; no reason givenSource: firelookout.com
  3. 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.

Telephone Butte rises about 14 miles west of Missoula, in Missoula County and the Lolo National Forest, at an elevation of 6,885 feet.1 The site's record places a 30-foot pole L-4 tower there in 1934.1

The record says the tower was abandoned in 1947 and is now gone.1 It gives no reason for the abandonment.1 The state-wide list of Montana lookouts also marks the Telephone Butte tower as gone, with coordinates but no history.2 Only the firelookout.com record gives dates, so the 1934 and 1947 dates rest on a single source.1,2

No source read for this story describes what, if anything, remains on the butte today.1,2 The sources also do not say whether the land is open to visitors, so anyone interested in the site should check with the Lolo National Forest before making a trip.1,2

  1. Telephone Butte Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/telephonebutte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. 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. 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.