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Fire lookout · Coos County, Oregon

Beaver Hill Lookout Site

Beaver Hill (Coos Co., OR): 50-ft tower built 1934, 40-ft live-in tower 1958, both lost in the 1962 Columbus Day storm; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in the Columbus Day storm of 1962; no source read describes the site today

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. No source read says whether the site is open to the public

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower50-foot wooden tower with L-4 cab (1934)The design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1934
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
607 ft (185 m)
Agency
Coos FPA (Former Fire Lookout Sites); Coos County Fire Patrol (Forest Lookouts)
Land
Unknown
Location
Coos County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.20498, −124.30320
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-beaver-hill

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. 1933 EventRoad work under way by November 1933 (Samuel L. Miller field report); The Forest Log item in December 1933 called it the Beaver Hill LookoutSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 Built50-foot wooden tower built on the site; L-4 cab, built by men from the Coquille CCC campSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1934 StaffedCharles Freeland named as lookout at the Beaver Hill station (Coos Bay Times item, July 1934)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1942 AlteredAWS cabin added to the siteSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  5. No record between 1942 and 1958
  6. 1958 Replaced by a new structure40-foot wooden live-in tower built to replace the 1934 tower and cabin (register, firelookout.com); the 1958 district report quoted by Forest Lookouts gives the replacement towers as 50 feetSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1962 Destroyed1958 tower destroyed in the Columbus Day stormSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  8. No record between 1962 and 2010
  9. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered November 22, 2010; nominated by Ray KresekSource: firetower.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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Beaver Hill is a lookout site 13 miles south-southwest of Coos Bay, in Coos County, Oregon, at 607 feet.1,2

Road work for the site was under way by November 1933. A field report by Samuel L. Miller from that month put the distance from the road to the planned lookout at about 5,900 feet.3 A December 1933 item in The Forest Log said work had started on another lookout tower and road, the Beaver Hill site southwest of Marshfield.3

The 50-foot wooden tower went up in 1934.1,2 Men from the Coquille CCC camp built it with an L-4 cab, according to the Forest Lookouts page.3

In July 1934 a Coos Bay Times item about new hires for the Coos Fire Patrol named Charles Freeland as the person staffing the Beaver Hill station.3

The site gained an AWS cabin in 1942.1,2

In 1958 a 40-foot wooden live-in tower went up in place of the earlier tower and cabin.1,2 A 1958 district report quoted on the Forest Lookouts page gives the replacement towers as 50 feet, so the sources disagree on the height.3 The Columbus Day storm of 1962 destroyed that tower.1,2,3

The register lists the Coos FPA as administrator and records the site as registered on November 22, 2010, on the nomination of Ray Kresek.1 The register does not describe what remains at the site today, and it says nothing about public access.1 Ask the managing agency before planning a visit.

  1. Beaver Hill Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/beaver-hill-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Beaver Hill Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/beaverhill.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Beaver Hill - Forest Lookouts, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/beaver-hill.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Beaver Hill Lookout site
Beaver Hill Lookout sitePhoto: Howard Verschoor, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Beaver Hill Lookout site
Beaver Hill Lookout sitePhoto: Howard Verschoor, 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, 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, access, 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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