FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Douglas County, Oregon

Abbott Butte

Umpqua NF lookout on Abbott Butte, Douglas County OR: 1928 D-6 cupola house, then an L-4 tower (1938 or 1939); collapsed 2021-22; remains burned; wilderness, on foot only.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Cab collapsed after 2015, then the tower over winter 2021-22; the Forest Service reportedly burned the remains

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Inside the Rogue-Umpqua Divide Wilderness since 1984; vehicle access closed; reached on foot

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
No tower to climb. A 2023 hiker found the trail did not seem to be maintained and was overgrown.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower20-ft sawn fir timber tower with L-4 14x14 cab (built 1938 or 1939); earlier 1928 D-6 cupola houseThe designs: L-4, D-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1928
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Umpqua National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Douglas County, Oregon
Coordinates
42.94312, −122.54946
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-abbott-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 3.4 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. 1927 StaffedGeorge Barrows named as lookout on Abbott Butte in an August 1927 newspaper report, which says he helped a packer carry lookout house materials from Woodruff MeadowsSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1928 BuiltD-6 cupola-style lookout house erected; firelookout.com says it sat on a 15-foot towerSources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
  3. 1938 Replaced by a new structure20-ft sawn fir timber tower with L-4 14x14 cab; Forest Lookouts dates it 1938 from an undated report, firelookout.com says 1939Sources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
  4. 1940 StaffedMr. and Mrs. Delbert Poole spent the summer at Abbott Butte; Mr. Poole named as Forest Service lookout, August 1940 Roseburg paperSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1940 and 1984
  6. 1984 EventArea designated wilderness (Rogue-Umpqua Divide Wilderness) with all vehicle access closedSources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, cherylhill.net
  7. No record between 1984 and 2022
  8. 2022 DestroyedReported on Every Lookout in OregonSource: Every Lookout in Oregon (Cheryl Hill)
  9. 2022 EventTower collapsed, probably over winter 2021-22 (exact time unclear per Every Lookout); collapse reported in a November 2022 post; cause not given; remains reportedly burnedSources: firelookout.com, cherylhill.net, firelookout.org
  10. 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.

The Umpqua National Forest put a lookout on Abbott Butte, in Douglas County, Oregon, about 20 miles west of Crater Lake.1,2 The 1928 lookout was a D-6 cupola-style house on a 15-foot tower.1,2

Sources differ on when the present tower went up. Forest Lookouts gives 1938 for a 20-foot sawn-fir timber tower with an L-4 cab, citing an undated report.1 The other site dates the L-4 tower to 1939.2

An August 1927 newspaper report named George Barrows as the lookout, and said he helped a packer carry the lookout house materials from Woodruff Meadows in four days.1 An August 1940 Roseburg paper said that Mr. and Mrs. Delbert Poole were spending the summer at Abbott Butte, and that Mr. Poole was the Forest Service lookout there.1

In 1984 the area became part of the Rogue-Umpqua Divide Wilderness, and all vehicle access was closed.1,3

The cabin was still standing in 2015.3 Sometime after that it collapsed, although the tower stayed up.3 The cab later caved in, the tower came down soon after, and the remains were reportedly burned.2 The post dates the rest of the lookout's collapse to some point in the winter of 2021 to 2022, though it says the exact time is unclear.3 A November 2022 post reported, through a geocache owner, that the tower had finally collapsed.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Oregon list marks it as gone.4

A visitor who hiked up in 2023 found the collapsed tower still there.3 That visitor later learned the Forest Service had burned the remains, probably out of liability concerns.3

According to these reports, no tower remains on the summit.2,3 Vehicle access was closed when the area became wilderness in 1984, so the site is reached on foot.1,3 A 2023 hiker found that the trail did not seem to be maintained and was overgrown.3 No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the summit now.

  1. Abbott Butte, Forest Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/abbott-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Abbott Butte Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/abbottbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Abbott Butte Lookout Collapsed, Every Lookout in Oregon, https://cherylhill.net/firelookouts/2022/11/15/abbott-butte-lookout-collapsed/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Oregon lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/ (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: design, height, 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. Every Lookout in Oregon (Cheryl Hill) Gave us: dates, links Every Lookout in Oregon (Cheryl Hill, cherylhill.net) · No licence stated; facts only (name, agency, elevation, year built, design and height, status word, links). Posts' narrative and photos are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.