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Fire lookout · Clackamas County, Oregon

Baty Butte Lookout Site

Clackamas County, OR summit where a tent lookout (1911 or 1914) gave way to an L-4 cab in the 1930s; the cab was gone by about 1949.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The L-4 cab was gone around 1949; no source describes a structure left on the summit

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. Summit reached on foot from the Baty Butte Trail, per Oregon Hikers; no source describes a lookout to visit

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
A short scramble from the Baty Butte Trail along the south ridge; stay back from the steep southwest face

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabGround L-4 cab, built in the 1930s after an early tent lookoutThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1911
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,052 ft (1,540 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Clackamas County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.99596, −122.20119
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-baty-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 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. 1911 BuiltTent lookout set up on the summit (Forest Lookouts; Oregon Hikers). The register and firelookout.com date the first tent to 1914.Sources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, oregonhikers.org
  2. 1914 BuiltFirst lookout was a tent with a phone placed by the USFS (register); firelookout.com lists '1914: camp.'Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  3. 1919 StaffedTwo men in charge of the lookout while they were at Bagby Hot Springs (Molalla Pioneer item, quoted by Forest Lookouts)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1919 and 1949
  5. 1949 RemovedL-4 cab gone around 1949 (register); 'Gone 1949' (firelookout.com); decommissioned before 1950 (Oregon Hikers). Method of removal not stated.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonhikers.org
  6. No record between 1949 and 2010
  7. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: August 16, 2010Source: 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.

Baty Butte is a 5,052-foot summit in Clackamas County, Oregon.1 Oregon Hikers places it at the western fringe of the Mount Hood National Forest.2

The summit's first lookout was a tent equipped with a phone.1 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register says the Forest Service placed it there in 1914.1 Forest Lookouts and Oregon Hikers both date the first tent lookout to 1911, so the sources disagree on the start date.1,3,4,2 In the 1930s the tent gave way to a ground L-4 cab.1,3,2

Oregon Hikers says the lookout was among the first equipped with an Osborne fire finder, an alidade-type sighting device that W.B. Osborne of Portland invented.2

In September 1919 the Molalla Pioneer reported that two men had been in charge of the Baty Butte lookout while they were away at Bagby Hot Springs.4

The cab was gone around 1949.1,3 Oregon Hikers dates the lookout's decommissioning to before 1950.2

Oregon Hikers describes a brief scramble to the summit along the south ridge from the Baty Butte Trail, and says an ammo box holds the summit register.2 The same guide calls the southwest face precipitous and advises keeping back from its edge.2 None of the sources we read describes what, if anything, remains of the lookout on the summit today.

  1. Baty Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org), http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/baty-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Baty Butte, Oregon Hikers field guide, https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guide/Baty_Butte (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Baty Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/batybutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Baty Butte, Forest Lookouts (oregonlookouts.weebly.com), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/baty-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Baty Butte Lookout panoramic 7-3-34
Baty Butte Lookout panoramic 7-3-34Photo: National Archives-Pacific Northwest Region, via 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, what it is built of, 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: 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, staffing, 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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