FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Lane County, Oregon

Canton Point

Lane County, OR: 40-ft wooden L-4 tower built 1954-55 on Canton Point; abandoned 1973 or removed 1976 per sources; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1973 per firelookout.com; removed in 1976 per Forest Lookouts. No source 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.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot wooden L-4 tower with a Douglas fir lookout houseThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1955
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Umpqua National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lane County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.53275, −122.69229
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-canton-point

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 3.6 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. 1954 EventConcrete piers poured and tower and lookout house under construction by Forest Service crews in September 1954Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1955 BuiltFirelookout.com date for the 40-foot wooden L-4 towerSource: firelookout.com
  3. 1963 StaffedA Portland State graduate from Eugene was stationed at Canton Point Lookout, per News-Review item of July 1963Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1973 AbandonedFirelookout.com: abandoned 1973Source: firelookout.com
  5. 1976 RemovedForest Lookouts: the lookout removed in 1976Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Canton Point is a lookout site in Lane County, Oregon, about 18 miles southwest of Oakridge, on the Umpqua National Forest.1 In September 1954 Forest Service crews were building a 40-foot tower and lookout house there, because the area was not well covered for fire detection.2 Materials were packed in by mule for three miles from the end of Sharps Creek Road, and a carpenter from Glide handled the construction.2 The house was to be built of Douglas fir.2 Firelookout.com dates the 40-foot wooden L-4 tower to 1955.1

A July 1963 News-Review item says a Portland State graduate from Eugene was stationed at Canton Point Lookout.2

The sources disagree on how the lookout ended.1,2 Firelookout.com says it was abandoned in 1973 and is gone.1 Forest Lookouts says the lookout was removed in 1976.2

The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Oregon list also marks the tower as gone.3 No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether it is open to visitors, so check with the Umpqua National Forest before you go.

  1. Canton Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/cantonpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Canton Point - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (Ron Kemnow), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/canton-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Oregon Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. 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
  3. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: height, agency, 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
  4. 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

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