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Fire lookout · Coos County, Oregon

Coos Lookout Site

Also known as Coos Mountain

Coos FPA lookout on Coos Mountain, staffed 1925-1958; build, tower and removal dates conflict across sources (removed 1959 or abandoned 1962); site today undocumented.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed; the register says removed in 1959, firelookout.com says destroyed in 1959, Forest Lookouts says abandoned in 1962

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 tower10' treated timber tower with an L-4 lookout houseThe designs: L-4, R-6
Built of
Wood
Built
1935
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
2,241 ft (683 m)
Agency
Coos FPA
Land
Unknown
Location
Coos County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.26545, −123.90856
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-coos

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. 1925 EventListed among Coos FPA's lookout stations, near the old hatchery on the North Fork of the Coquille RiverSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1928 StaffedMaurice Tedro named as lookout at Coos MountainSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1934 EventA 14 x 14 R-6 Revised Plan No. L-4 house packed to the mountain; Mr. MacDonald, reached by phone, judged a 40 to 50 foot treated tower could be hauled upSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1935 BuiltLive-in tower built, per the register; Forest Lookouts instead dates the new tower to 1936Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  5. 1935 StaffedHomer Millard stationed at Coos Mountain during the summerSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1936 RebuiltNew tower and lookout house constructed, per an April 1936 item on Forest LookoutsSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1936 StaffedRobert King, Oregon State College forestry student, placed on the lookoutSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  8. 1938 StaffedEd Kondraski reassigned to the post he had held the previous summerSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  9. 1941 StaffedJames Peterson of Roseburg employed as a lookout on Coos MountainSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  10. 1946 Replaced by a new structureReplaced with a 10' treated timber L-4 tower, per the register; Forest Lookouts dates a similar L-4 house on a 10-foot tower to 1957Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  11. 1953 StaffedMarvel Christensen worked at the station that summerSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  12. 1957 AlteredL-4 lookout house constructed on a 10-foot treated timber tower, per Forest LookoutsSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  13. 1958 StaffedDana Wells set to maintain the Coos Mountain lookout for the summerSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  14. 1959 RemovedTower removed per the register; firelookout.com says destroyed in 1959Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  15. 1962 AbandonedForest Lookouts says 'The lookout abandoned.' in 1962; it gives no removal dateSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  16. No record between 1962 and 2010
  17. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: December 9, 2010Source: FFLOS register entry
  18. 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.

Coos Mountain sits in Coos County, near the North Fork of the Coquille River.1,2 The Coos FPA listed it as one of its lookout stations in December 1925.2

The sources disagree about the first tower. The Former Fire Lookout Sites register says a live-in tower went up in 1935.1,3 The Forest Lookouts site tells a longer story. In 1934 a 14 by 14 lookout house was packed to the mountain, and Mr. MacDonald, reached by phone, judged that a 40 to 50 foot treated timber tower could be hauled up as well.2 By April 1936 the same site reports a new tower and lookout house.2

Seasonal lookouts came and went. Maurice Tedro was posted there in 1928.2 Homer Millard spent the summer of 1935 at the station.2 In 1936 Robert King, an Oregon State College forestry student, was placed on the mountain.2 Ed Kondraski came back in 1938 to the post he had held the summer before.2 Marvel Christensen worked there in 1953, and Dana Wells was set to maintain the lookout for the summer of 1958.2

The ending is also unclear. The register says the 1935 tower was replaced in 1946 with a 10-foot treated timber tower carrying an L-4 house, and that it was removed in 1959.1 Firelookout.com gives the same 1946 replacement and 1959 end, but says the tower was destroyed.3 The Forest Lookouts site says an L-4 house went onto a 10-foot treated timber tower in 1957, and that the lookout was abandoned in 1962.2 We could not confirm which dates are right, or whether the 1957 house was the same as the 1946 tower.

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on Coos Mountain today. We also found nothing about whether the site is open to visitors.

  1. Coos Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/coos-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Coos Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/coos-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Coos Fire Lookout Tower, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.firelookout.com/or/coos.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, dates, 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, 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

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