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Fire lookout · Jefferson County, Oregon

Abbot Butte Lookout Site

Deschutes NF lookout near Sisters, Oregon: a 40-foot L-4 pole tower built 1932-33, pulled down in 1967 and gone by 1968.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Pulled down by a logging company in 1967; the register and firelookout.com list it as gone by 1968

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 tower40-foot round pole tower with a 14x14 L-4 hip-roofed cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1932
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
4,329 ft (1,320 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Deschutes National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Jefferson County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.55762, −121.70895
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-abbot-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 3.6 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. 1932 BuiltRoad and tower work began in October 1932; firelookout.com gives 1932 as the build year, and a history page says the tower was constructed in 1933Sources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
  2. 1936 StaffedPaul Talonen placed on the butte as lookout fireman on August 5, 1936Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1938 StaffedRobert Hudson to be lookout fireman for the 1938 summer monthsSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1938 and 1961
  5. 1961 StaffedA.D. Cleveland's summer job as a lookout on Abbot Butte, per an Albany Democrat-Herald itemSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1967 RemovedLogging company pulled the tower down for the Forest Service; the first attempt failed and a leg was cutSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. No record between 1967 and 2010
  8. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: August 16, 2010Source: FFLOS register entry
  9. 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Abbot Butte, in the Sisters district of the Deschutes National Forest, got its fire lookout in 1932 or 1933.1,2 In October 1932 the local forest service office said a tower would go up as soon as a road reached the summit, and a crew was already building that road.1 A lookout history page says the finished tower was a 40-foot round pole structure with a 14-by-14-foot L-4 cab, constructed in 1933.1 The register names the U.S. Forest Service as administrator.3

Lookout firemen worked the butte in the summers.1 In 1936 the Bend Bulletin reported that Paul Talonen had been placed there, and in 1938 it reported that Robert Hudson would take the post for the summer months.1 A 1961 Albany Democrat-Herald item describes a summer lookout job on the butte, and it is the latest staffing record in these sources.1

In 1967 a logging company pulled the tower down for the Forest Service. The first try failed, so one leg had to be cut to weaken the structure.1 The register and firelookout.com both say the tower was gone by 1968.3,2

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the butte today. The register has a photo captioned "Site on June 3, 2002," but the caption does not say what it shows.3 We found nothing on current access, so check with the Deschutes National Forest before planning a trip.

  1. Abbot Butte, Forest Lookouts (Oregon), Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/abbot-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Abbot Butte Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/abbotbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Abbot Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/abbot-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Abbot Butte Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Site on June 3, 2002
Site on June 3, 2002 (2002)Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. 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
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, height, 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, visiting details, 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

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