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Fire lookout · Curry County, Oregon

Bobs Garden Lookout Site

Siskiyou NF lookout in Curry County, OR: a 40-foot L-4 tower built 1940 or 1941 (sources differ), abandoned 1954 and now gone; no current site description found.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Register and firelookout.com say the tower was abandoned in 1954 and is now gone; no source describes what remains at the site

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.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot pole L-4 tower (register and firelookout.com); 40-foot round timber tower (Oregon Lookouts, quoting a Siskiyou NF history)The design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1940
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
4,325 ft (1,318 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Curry County, Oregon
Coordinates
42.64009, −123.92356
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-bobs-garden

View from the cab

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This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and its recorded height.

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History

Then and now

  1. 1933 Staffed1933 Camp Agness CCC newspaper item: Elwin Florance returned to his post on the Bob's Garden emergency lookout; not clear whether that was the later towerSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1940 BuiltSiskiyou NF history as quoted on Oregon Lookouts: 40-foot round timber tower constructed, with a three-quarter-mile spur trail; the register and firelookout.com date the build to 1941Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1940 EventMay 1940 forest plan entry (Plans, Guard Placement, Siskiyou NF), quoted on Oregon Lookouts: provides detection for a considerable area of high hazard burnsSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1941 BuiltRegister and firelookout.com: built in 1941 as a 40-foot pole L-4 towerSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  5. 1941 StaffedStaffed 100 days; reporting station was Agness Ranger Station; communications by early radio and forest lineSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1942 EventCoast and Geodetic Survey description (1942) places its station at the center of the Forest Service lookout house; the house is described as square with a pyramidal roof; the station was not visited because it was inaccessibleSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1954 AbandonedAbandoned in 1954 per the register and firelookout.comSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  8. No record between 1954 and 2010
  9. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered November 23, 2010 as US 767, OR 176; 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.

Bob's Garden is a peak in the Siskiyou National Forest, in Curry County, Oregon, about 30 miles northeast of Gold Beach.1,2 The peak stands at 4,325 feet, or 1,318 meters.1

The oldest item on the Oregon Lookouts page is a 1933 note from the Camp Agness CCC newspaper.3 It says Elwin Florance returned to his post on the Bob's Garden emergency lookout, and it does not say whether that was the tower built later.3

A May 1940 Coos Bay Times item, as quoted on the same page, said three new lookouts would serve the Siskiyou that year, and one would stand on Bob's Garden peak in the Agness district.3 A May 1940 forest plan entry, also quoted there, says the site provides detection for a considerable area of high-hazard burns.3

The sources disagree on the build year. A history of the Siskiyou National Forest, as quoted on the Oregon Lookouts page, says a 40-foot round timber tower was constructed in 1940, along with a three-quarter-mile spur trail.3 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register and firelookout.com both say the tower was built in 1941 and call it a 40-foot pole L-4 tower.1,2 We could not settle which year is right.

The lookout was staffed for 100 days in 1941, and reports went to the Agness Ranger Station.3 Early radio and a forest line, which tied into a West Coast Telephone Company line, handled its communications.3

A 1942 Coast and Geodetic Survey description, copied on the same page, placed its survey station at the center of the Forest Service lookout house on Bob's Garden Mountain. The observer did not visit, because the station was inaccessible, and looked at it from a great distance. From there it appeared to be a square building with a pyramidal roof, sitting directly on the ground.3

The register says the tower was abandoned in 1954 and is now gone.1 firelookout.com says it was abandoned that year and has since departed, and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Oregon list marks it as gone.2,4

No source we read describes what, if anything, is still on the peak. The one access remark we found is a 1942 survey note that the station was not visited because it was inaccessible.3 No source says whether the public can reach the site today, so check with the Siskiyou National Forest before planning a visit.

  1. Bobs Garden Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/bobs-garden-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Bob's Garden Fire Lookout Tower, Rex's Fire Lookout Page (firelookout.com), https://www.firelookout.com/or/bobsgarden.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Bob's Garden - Forest Lookouts, Oregon Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/bobs-garden.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Oregon Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Bobs Garden Lookout Site
Photo: 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: 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, 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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