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Fire lookout · Linn County, Oregon

Bachelor Mountain Lookout Site

Willamette National Forest L-4 ground cabin on Bachelor Mountain, Linn County: built 1934, removed 1967; Forest Service trail 3420 reaches the former lookout site.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Cab removed in 1967 per the register; firelookout.com says destroyed and the Oregon lookouts page says disposed of by burning. No source describes remains on the site.

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. Forest Service trail 3420 with directions from Detroit to the trailhead; the trail page describes the former lookout site as a viewpoint and does not describe any closure of the site itself

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Trail 3420, 1.9 miles through Noble fir and Douglas-fir forest; contact the local ranger station for current conditions

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4, 14 by 14 ground cabinThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,953 ft (1,815 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Willamette National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Linn County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.62874, −122.01306
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-bachelor-mountain

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 3.7 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. 1931 EventForest supervisor C. C. Hall named Bachelor Mountain one of eleven new emergency stationsSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 Built14 by 14 L-4 ground cabin constructedSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1967
  4. 1967 BurnedOregon lookouts page: cab disposed of by burning; firelookout.com says destroyed in 1967Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1967 RemovedRegister: L-4 cab removed in 1967Source: firetower.org
  6. No record between 1967 and 2011
  7. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: April 24, 2011Source: FFLOS register entry
  8. 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.

Bachelor Mountain is a peak in Linn County, Oregon, in the Willamette National Forest, about nine miles southeast of Detroit.1,2 The lookout on it was a 14-by-14 L-4 cab built on the ground in 1934.3,1

In April 1931 the forest supervisor, C. C. Hall, said Bachelor Mountain was among eleven emergency lookout posts being added that year, and that it would be linked to the telephone system the next year.3

The register says the cab was removed in 1967, and firelookout.com says it was destroyed that year.1,2 The Oregon lookouts page says it was disposed of by burning in 1967.3

Today the Forest Service lists trail 3420, a 1.9-mile route through an older forest of Noble fir and Douglas-fir.4 The trail page describes a wide view of the Cascades from the former lookout site, and it gives directions from Detroit, Oregon, to the trailhead.4 For current conditions it says to contact the local ranger station.4 No source we read describes what, if anything, remains of the cab or its footings.

  1. Bachelor Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/bachelor-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Bachelor Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/bachelormtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Bachelor Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Oregon), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/bachelor-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Bachelor Mountain Trail #3420, USDA Forest Service, Willamette National Forest, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r06/willamette/recreation/trails/bachelor-mountain-trail-3420 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Bachelor Mountain Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · 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.

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: what it is built of, design, 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, 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.