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Fire lookout · Mineral County, Montana

Wade Peak

Lolo NF lookout about 10 mi SW of Superior, MT: built 1934 as a 30' pole L-4 tower, a lookout man named in 1935, gone by 1960. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1960 per Firelookout.com; no source we read describes the site today

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' pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lolo National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Mineral County, Montana
Coordinates
47.12001, −115.08861
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-wade-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 4.3 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 BuiltFirelookout.com gives 1934 as the build year; an April 1934 Missoulian item (quoted on Forest Lookouts) says materials for ten new lookout towers were ordered, one planned for Wade PeakSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1935 StaffedSeptember 1935 Missoulian item names Bert Smallwood as a lookout man from Wade PeakSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1935 and 1960
  4. 1960 RemovedGone by 1960 per Firelookout.com; the removal date and method are not givenSource: 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.

Wade Peak is a former lookout about ten miles southwest of Superior, in Mineral County, Montana, on the Lolo National Forest.1 An April 1934 Missoulian item said materials for ten new lookout towers had been ordered, and one of the planned sites was Wade Peak in the Superior district.2 Firelookout.com says the tower was built that year. It was a 30-foot pole L-4 tower.1

In September 1935 a Missoulian item, quoted on Forest Lookouts, reported that most lookout men had come back from their posts, and named Bert Smallwood as a lookout man from Wade Peak.2

Firelookout.com marks the tower as gone by 1960.1 No source we read describes what, if anything, is left on the summit today, or whether the site is open to the public. Anyone thinking of going up should check with the Lolo National Forest first.

  1. Wade Peak Fire Lookout Tower, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/wadepeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Wade Peak, Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/wade-peak.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.