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Fire lookout · Grant County, Oregon

Antelope Mountain Lookout

Malheur NF summit lookout in Grant County; present R-6 cab moved here from Lake Butte in 1974; register lists 1963 build year that other sources do not support.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Staffing
Staffed during fire season

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerR-6 flat-top cab with catwalk on a 30-foot pole towerThe designs: R-6, L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
6,456 ft (1,968 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Malheur National Forest (Prairie City Ranger District)
Land
Federal land
Location
Grant County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.04246, −118.41924 sources disagree
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-antelope-mountain

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

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. 1929 BuiltFirst lookout at the site: a 20-foot tower with an L-4 cab, per the Forest Service archive file. Other sources give 1928 (1961 memo) or 1930 (register, firelookout.com, Cheryl Hill).Sources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1929 and 1963
  3. 1963 Built'Built' field on NHLR detail pageSource: NHLR register entry
  4. 1974 MovedR-6 cab and 30-foot tower moved from Lake Butte (about 45 air miles away) to Antelope Mountain under a 1974 Forest Service contract (bid awarded to Emmert Industrial Corp.); the contract called for removing the old tower and house here.Sources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, nhlr.org, cherylhill.net
  5. No record between 1974 and 2011
  6. 2011 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered September 4, 2011 as US 913, OR 117Source: nhlr.org
  7. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Antelope Mountain Lookout sits at 6,456 feet on Antelope Mountain in the Malheur National Forest, about 40 miles northeast of Burns in Grant County, Oregon.1,2 Sources do not agree on when the first lookout went up. A 1961 Forest Service inspection note, quoted on Forest Lookouts, calls it an old-type lookout built in 1928. An archive file records a 20-foot tower with an L-4 cab in 1929. The register, firelookout.com and Cheryl Hill's visit notes all give 1930.3,1,2,4

The lookout in place today is a different cab. In 1974 a Forest Service contract moved a flat-top R-6 cab with a catwalk from Lake Butte, about 45 air miles away, onto a tower on this summit. The 1974 contract called for removing the old tower and house here.3,1 The 1974 contract allowed the contractor to choose how far to dismantle the cab, and a visitor in 2022 described it being moved whole by truck.3,4

The lookout is a 30-foot tower by most accounts, though the register says 31 feet.1,2,4 The register lists the site as US 913, OR 117, and says it was registered on September 4, 2011.1 Firelookout.com says it is staffed every summer.2 When Cheryl Hill visited in October 2022, the cab was already shut up for winter.4

A gravel road, Road 544, runs to the summit.4 The available sources do not say whether visitors may go up into the cab, so check with the Prairie City Ranger District before planning a visit.1

The register's "built" field gives 1963. None of the other sources read supports that date, and the register's own description puts the first lookout in 1930.1

  1. Antelope Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/or/antelope-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Antelope Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/antelope.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Antelope Mountain, Forest Lookouts (oregonlookouts.weebly.com), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/antelope-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Antelope Mountain, Every Lookout in Oregon (Cheryl Hill), https://cherylhill.net/firelookouts/2022/11/10/antelope-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Antelope Mountain Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Antelope Mtn. in 1930
Antelope Mtn. in 1930 (1930)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum, Grant County Museum, U.S. Forest Service, and Rex Kamstra, via firelookout.com · source
Antelope Mtn. in 1934
Antelope Mtn. in 1934 (1934)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum, Grant County Museum, U.S. Forest Service, and Rex Kamstra, via firelookout.com · source
Antelope Mtn. in 1974
Antelope Mtn. in 1974 (1974)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum, Grant County Museum, U.S. Forest Service, and Rex Kamstra, via firelookout.com · source
Antelope Mtn. in 1974
Antelope Mtn. in 1974 (1974)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum, Grant County Museum, U.S. Forest Service, and Rex Kamstra, via firelookout.com · source
Antelope Mtn. in 1974
Antelope Mtn. in 1974 (1974)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum, Grant County Museum, U.S. Forest Service, and Rex Kamstra, via firelookout.com · source
Antelope Mtn. L.O.
Antelope Mtn. L.OPhoto: the Fire Lookout Museum, Grant County Museum, U.S. Forest Service, and Rex Kamstra, via firelookout.com · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the location by 550 m.

    • NHLR: 44.04246, −118.41924
    • FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites): 44.03821, −118.41576

    The map uses the position from NHLR.

  • Sources disagree on the year it was built.

    • NHLR: 1963
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1930
    • Every Lookout in Oregon (Cheryl Hill): 1974

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.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: design, height, staffing, photos, 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: 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. Every Lookout in Oregon (Cheryl Hill) Gave us: register numbers, 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
  6. 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

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