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Fire lookout · Wasco County, Oregon

Bonney Butte Lookout Site

Mount Hood NF ridge site: a 1925 tent, a 1933 L-4 cab, deactivated 1964 and burned 1967. A panel and remnants are described on site, and hikers visit.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The cab was burned in 1967; a trail guide describes remnants of the old lookout

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. Reached on foot from a trailhead parking area; a trail guide says the road is closed to motor vehicles August 15 to November 1

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
About a half-mile hike from the trailhead parking area (trail guide); the Oregon Hikers guide lists hikes of 1.2 to 13 miles that reach the site

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cab1925 tent with firefinder and telephone; 1933 L-4 cab on the ridge below the summitThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,600 ft (1,707 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Mount Hood National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Wasco County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.26289, −121.59312
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-bonney-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 4.0 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. 1925 EventForest Service tent with firefinder and telephone erected (register); firelookout.com lists 1925 as a campSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1932 EventNewspaper item says a new standard cabin had been built; the register and firelookout.com date the L-4 cab to 1933Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1933 BuiltL-4 cab built on the south end of the ridge below the summitSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  4. 1941 StaffedStaffed 74 days; reports by telephone to Dufur Ranger StationSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1945 StaffedMembers of the Trails Club of Oregon staffed the station (called an AWS station)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1945 and 1964
  7. 1964 ClosedLookout station deactivatedSources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, oregonhikers.org
  8. 1967 BurnedStructure ignited by a Forest Service employee as the chosen method of disposal (November 1967)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  9. No record between 1967 and 2010
  10. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered August 17, 2010 as US 576, OR 17Source: firetower.org
  11. 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.

The Bonney Butte lookout site is in the Mount Hood National Forest, about nine miles southeast of Mount Hood.1 The U.S. Forest Service administered it.2

The sources disagree on the county.2,1,3 The register places the site in Wasco County, while firelookout.com and the Forest Lookouts page say Hood River County.2,1,3

The Forest Service set up a tent with a firefinder and a telephone there in 1925.2 The register and firelookout.com both date an L-4 cab on the site to 1933, and the register places it on the south end of the ridge below the summit.2,1

A Forest Lookouts item dated October 1932 describes a new standard cabin already built at Bonney Butte, so the cabin date is not settled.3

The lookout was staffed for 74 days in 1941, and Dufur Ranger Station, its reporting station, was connected by telephone.3 In 1945 members of the Trails Club of Oregon staffed the station.3

The lookout was deactivated in 1964.3,4 In November 1967 a Forest Service employee set fire to the building to dispose of it.3 The register says the lookout was gone by 1967.2

A hiking guide says a panel at the site tells the lookout's history.4 A trail guide refers to the remnants of the old lookout and says it was removed in the 1960s.5

Hikers can reach the site on foot.4,5 The trail guide describes a half-mile hike from the trailhead parking area to the summit.5 It also says the road up the butte is closed to motor vehicles from August 15 to November 1 to protect migrating raptors, which puts early October inside the closure.5 Oregon Hikers marks its hikes to the site "Closed" without saying why, so check current closures before a visit.4

The register listed the site as US 576, OR 17, in August 2010.2

  1. Bonney Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/bonneybutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Bonney Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/bonney-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Bonney Butte, Forest Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/bonney-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Bonney Butte, Oregon Hikers field guide, https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guide/Bonney_Butte (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Bonney Butte Road, Trails Offroad, https://www.trailsoffroad.com/US/oregon/trails/2684-bonney-butte-road (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Bonney Butte Lookout 1963
Bonney Butte Lookout 1963 (1963)Photo: Rex Kamstra collection, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Bonney Butte Lookout site 2012
Bonney Butte Lookout site 2012 (2012)Photo: 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, 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, 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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