FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

Vermillion Peak

Sanders County, MT pole L-4 tower in the Kootenai NF; firelookout.com dates it 1935 but 1936 items show construction, and it was destroyed in 1963. No site description.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1963 per firelookout.com and the Forest Lookouts page; 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 towerpole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kootenai National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
47.76986, −115.32842
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-vermillion-peak

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. 1935 Builtfirelookout.com gives 1935 as the build year; 1936 newspaper items disagree (see resolved_conflicts)Source: firelookout.com
  2. 1936 EventSeptember 1936 newspaper item: crew packing equipment for a new lookout at the head of Graves Creek; Ben Cox foreman in chargeSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1946 EventJune 1946: Forest Service packers found the lookout station wrecked after a bear got into the lookoutSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1946 and 1963
  5. 1963 DestroyedDestroyed in 1963 per firelookout.com; the Forest Lookouts page gives the same year and cites KresekSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 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.

Vermillion Peak sits in Sanders County, Montana, in the Kootenai National Forest.1,2 Firelookout.com says a pole L-4 tower went up on the peak in 1935 and was destroyed in 1963.3

The Forest Lookouts page quotes a September 1936 newspaper item about the work. The item says a crew was hauling gear to a new lookout site near the upper end of Graves Creek, with Ben Cox as foreman.1 That is a year later than the date firelookout.com gives, so the two sources disagree about when the tower was built.3,1

In June 1946, Forest Service packers reached the station and found it wrecked. A bear had climbed the tower and got inside the cabin on top of it.1

The Forest Lookouts page gives 1963 as the year it was destroyed, citing a source it names as Kresek.1 The Montana list marks the tower gone.2 No source describes what remains at the site today, and none says whether the peak is open to the public.3,1,2

  1. Vermillion Peak, Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/vermillion-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Vermillion Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/vermillionpeak.html (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.