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Fire lookout · Union County, Oregon

Beaver Mountain Lookout Site

Beaver Mountain (Wallowa-Whitman NF, Union Co., OR): 1920 pole platform, 1936 30-ft L-5 tower, gone in the 1940s; thin sources and no description of the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone in the 1940s per the Former Fire Lookout Sites register; 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 tower30-foot pole tower with L-5 cab (1936), after a 30-foot pole platform (1920)The design: L-5
Built of
Wood
Built
1920
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
6,080 ft (1,853 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Former Fire Lookout Sites); Wallowa-Whitman National Forest (Forest Lookouts)
Land
Federal land
Location
Union County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.13715, −118.16262
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-beaver-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 its recorded height.

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. 1920 Built30-foot pole platform built on the site (register 'Built' field and description)Source: firetower.org
  2. No record between 1920 and 1936
  3. 1936 Built30-foot pole tower with L-5 cab constructed (register); firelookout.com gives a 7x7-foot cabSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  4. 1940 RemovedRegister gives only 'the 1940's' and firelookout.com 'Abandoned 1940s'; the year 1940 is an approximation, not a documented dateSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  5. No record between 1940 and 2019
  6. 2019 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered November 18, 2019; nominated by Tammy McLeodSource: firetower.org
  7. 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 Mountain sits in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in Union County, Oregon.1,2 The register gives its elevation as 6,080 feet, while firelookout.com gives 6,040 feet.1,3

A 30-foot pole platform went up on the site in 1920.1 Later, in 1936, a 30-foot pole tower with an L-5 cab was built there.1 Firelookout.com gives the 1936 tower a 7-by-7-foot cab.3

The register places the end of the lookout in the 1940s, and firelookout.com lists it as abandoned in that decade.1,3 Forest Lookouts also marks the site as removed.2

The site was registered on November 18, 2019, on the nomination of Tammy McLeod, and the register lists the U.S. Forest Service as administrator.1 The register does not describe what remains at the site today, and it says nothing about public access.1

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

Photos

Beaver Mountain Lookout 1920 - 1936
Beaver Mountain Lookout 1920 - 1936 (1920)Photo: Howard Verschoor collection, 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, 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

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