FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

Vanderburg Mountain

Sanders County, MT 50-foot pole L-4 tower on the Flathead Indian Reservation, dated 1935 and destroyed 1961; a July 1959 item names its lookout. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1961 per firelookout.com; the Montana list also marks it 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
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-foot pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead Indian Agency
Land
Unknown
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
47.31894, −114.59469
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-vanderburg-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 3.8 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. 1935 Builtfirelookout.com dates the 50-foot pole L-4 tower to 1935Source: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1935 and 1959
  3. 1959 StaffedJuly 1959 item, cited to Char-Koosta, reports Louie Parker on the Vanderburg tower in the Flathead Agency DistrictSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1961 Destroyedfirelookout.com gives 1961 as the year the tower was destroyedSource: firelookout.com
  5. 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.

Vanderburg Mountain sits in Sanders County, Montana, on the Flathead Indian Reservation.1,2,3 Firelookout.com dates its tower to 1935 and describes it as a 50-foot pole tower of the L-4 type.1

The Forest Lookouts page lists the site under the Flathead Indian Agency and gives its location as township 18 North, range 24 West, section 13.2 In July 1959, an item cited to the Char-Koosta reported that Louie Parker was on the Vanderburg tower in the Flathead Agency District.2

Firelookout.com says the tower was destroyed in 1961, after the July 1959 item.1 The Montana list files it as a tower and marks it gone.3

No source describes what remains at the site today, and none says whether the mountain is open to the public.1,2,3

  1. Vanderburg Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/vanderburgmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Vanderburg, Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/vanderburg.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: 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.