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Fire lookout · Klamath County, Oregon

Boundary Butte Lookout Site

Klamath County, OR: 1934 cabin and 1935 60-ft CCC steel tower for the Klamath Indian Agency; manned into the 1950s; tower removed by 1974; both site listings say gone.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Both site listings say the tower and cabin are gone; a 1974 lookout summary says the tower was removed and the living quarters cabin remained

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 tower60-foot steel Aermotor tower with cabinThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Steel
Built
1934
Height
60 ft (18.3 m)
Elevation
5,738 ft (1,749 m)
Agency
Klamath FPA/U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Klamath County, Oregon
Coordinates
42.80545, −121.91838
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-boundary-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 its recorded height.

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. 1934 BuiltLiving quarters cabin, 12x16 feet (building 672); a one-mile truck trail to the top was under construction in July 1934Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1935 Built60-foot Aermotor steel tower constructed by the CCC for the Klamath Indian Agency (building 671)Sources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1947 StaffedAlice Hamilton reported stationed as the lookout (Herald and News, June 1947)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1961 EventLookout passed to the Oregon Department of Forestry to operate and maintain (January 1961)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1974 RemovedLookout summary reports the tower removed and the living quarters cabin remaining; a 1971 survey note still described the towerSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1974 and 2011
  7. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: May 17, 2011Source: 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.

Boundary Butte rises to 5,738 feet, about 11 miles southeast of Crater Lake in Klamath County, Oregon.1,2 Its records name both the Klamath Indian Agency and the Winema National Forest.3

In 1934 a truck trail was under construction to the top, and a 12-by-16-foot cabin went up as living quarters for the lookout.3 A plan from that year called for a 47-foot Aermotor tower, but the tower that followed stood 60 feet tall.3,1 The Civilian Conservation Corps built the steel tower in 1935 for the Klamath Indian Agency.3

Alice Hamilton was stationed here as a lookout by 1947.3 A 1953 newspaper profile said she had spent her summers in the tower since 1942, hauled her own water and chopped her own firewood.3

In January 1961 responsibility for the lookout passed to the Oregon Department of Forestry.3 A 1971 survey note still described the tower, but a 1974 lookout summary says it had been removed while the living quarters cabin remained.3 The two site listings say both the tower and the cabin are gone.1,2 The sources disagree about the cabin, and only the 1974 summary says it survived.1,2,3

No source describes what is on the butte today, so what remains there, and whether visitors can reach it, is unknown.

  1. Boundary Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/boundary-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Boundary Butte Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/boundarybutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Boundary Butte, Forest Lookouts Oregon, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/boundary-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Boundary Butte Lookout
Boundary Butte LookoutPhoto: Howard Verschoor collection, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Boundary Butte Lookout living quarters 1960
Boundary Butte Lookout living quarters 1960 (1960)Photo: Howard Verschoor collection, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Boundary Butte Lookout site
Boundary Butte Lookout sitePhoto: Ron Kemnow, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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, ownership, 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, staffing, 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.