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Fire lookout · Wallowa County, Oregon

Cemetery Ridge Lookout Site

Cemetery Ridge lookout, Wallowa County: L-4 cab built 1940, named watchers to 1951, gone; a 1947 move to Buckhorn Mountain is unconfirmed and no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as gone. FFLOS says the cab may have moved to Buckhorn Mountain in 1947; Buckhorn's own record credits a cab moved from Fairchild Point in 1952. A weebly page quotes a 1954 history saying the lookout blew over in 1952.

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
Ground-level cabL-4 cab (1940)The design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1940
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,240 ft (1,597 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Wallowa-Whitman National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Wallowa County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.77635, −116.81138
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-cemetery-ridge

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. 1940 BuiltL-4 cab, per FFLOS and firelookout.com.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1942 First staffedFred Beaudoin is the earliest named lookout on firelookout.com. The first staffing year is not documented.Source: firelookout.com
  3. 1947 MovedFFLOS says the L-4 cab may have been moved to Buckhorn Mountain in 1947. Not confirmed by any other source read.Source: firetower.org
  4. 1951 Last staffedRobert Spencer is the last named lookout on firelookout.com. Staffing after this year is not documented in the sources read.Source: firelookout.com
  5. 1952 EventWeebly quotes a 1954 history: the Cemetery lookout blew over the hill that fall. Firelookout.com credits the Buckhorn cab to a 1952 move from Fairchild Point, not from Cemetery Ridge.Sources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
  6. No record between 1952 and 2011
  7. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered with the Former Fire Lookout Sites Register on July 27, 2011.Source: firetower.org
  8. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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 Cemetery Ridge lookout stood in Wallowa County, within the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, about 33 miles northeast of Enterprise.1,2

The Forest Fire Lookout Association says an L-4 cab was built here in 1940.1 Firelookout.com gives the same year and lists the cab as gone.2

Named watchers appear in the record from 1942 to 1951, including Fred Beaudoin in 1942 and Robert Spencer in 1951.2

The cab's later history is disputed. The Forest Fire Lookout Association suggests the cab could have gone to Buckhorn Mountain in 1947.1 The Buckhorn Mountain record, however, says its L-4 cab was moved there from Fairchild Point in 1952.3 A weebly page quotes a 1954 history of the Wallowa National Forest that says the Cemetery lookout blew over in 1952.4 The sources do not agree on what became of the cab.1,4,3

No source read describes what, if anything, remains on Cemetery Ridge today.2 The Forest Service's Buckhorn Tower Viewpoint is open for day use only.5 None of the sources read links that viewpoint to the Cemetery Ridge cab.1,3

  1. Cemetery Ridge Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/cemetery-ridge-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Cemetery Ridge Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/cemeteryridge.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Buckhorn Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://firelookout.com/or/buckhorn104.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Cementary Ridge, FOREST LOOKOUTS (Oregon), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/cementary-ridge.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Buckhorn Tower Viewpoint, USDA Forest Service, Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, https://fs.usda.gov/r06/wallowa-whitman/recreation/buckhorn-tower-viewpoint (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Cemetery Ridge Lookout site 2010
Cemetery Ridge Lookout site 2010 (2010)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, 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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