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Fire lookout · Lake County, Oregon

Crane Mountain Lookout Site (Lake County)

Also known as Crane Mountain

Fremont NF lookout site, Lake County: 10-foot timber tower built 1952, staffed into 1961, removed 1972; a 2007 photo caption shows only remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Lookout removed in 1972. A July 2007 photo caption on peakbagging.com says it is all that remains of the 1952 lookout.

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. No source read says whether the site is open to visitors, or describes its condition today.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower10-foot treated timber L-4 tower with a hip-roof Aladdin lookout houseThe design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1952
Height
10 ft (3.0 m)
Elevation
8,347 ft (2,544 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Fremont National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Lake County, Oregon
Coordinates
42.07431, −120.24402 sources disagree
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-crane-mountain-lake-county

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. 1952 Built10-foot treated timber tower with hip-roof Aladdin lookout house; replaced the Willow Point lookoutSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1959 StaffedGerald W. Lilje stationed there (Herald and News, July 7, 1959, as quoted by Forest Lookouts)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1960 StaffedRoy E. Jones manning it (Herald and News, July 22, 1960); Richard and Dorothy Davie staffed part of the seasonSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1961 StaffedMr. and Mrs. Ross Bailey manning it (Herald and News, July 2, 1961)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1963 RebuiltLookout cabin rebuilt, interior repainted, shutters converted, for $500Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1969 Event1969 Lookout Inventory: used only for emergency fire detection. A memo that year proposed removing the garage and toilet because of vandalism.Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1972 RemovedRegister says removed; firelookout.com says destroyed; Forest Lookouts gives 1972 for removalSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  8. No record between 1972 and 2011
  9. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: May 20, 2011Source: FFLOS register entry
  10. 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 Crane Mountain lookout stood on Fremont National Forest land in Lake County.1 The register places it at the end of a spur one mile north of the summit.1 The site is about 10 miles southeast of Lakeview.2

The register calls the 1952 tower a 10-foot treated timber L-4 tower.1 A Forest Lookouts history says the new lookout house was an Aladdin hip-roof model, and that the tower replaced the Willow Point lookout.3 A 1959 inspection called the tower 10 feet high, but a 1963 memo refers to a "20' wood tower," so the sources disagree on its height.3

Newspaper notices quoted in that history name the people who staffed it.3 Gerald W. Lilje was stationed there in 1959, and Roy E. Jones was manning it in 1960.3 The history also says Richard and Dorothy Davie staffed it for part of the 1960 season, and a July 1961 notice has Mr. and Mrs. Ross Bailey manning it.3

The cabin was rebuilt in 1963.3 By 1969 the lookout was used only for emergency fire detection.3 That year a memo weighed removing the garage and toilet, saying those spots had seen many vandalism problems.3

The register says the tower was removed in 1972.1 The firelookout.com entry says it was destroyed that year.2 The Forest Lookouts history gives the same year for its removal.3

A photo on peakbagging.com from July 2007 is captioned as showing all that remains of the 1952 lookout.4 We found no source that describes those remains in detail or says whether the site is open to visitors today.

  1. Crane Mountain Lookout Site (Lake County), Former Fire Lookout Sites register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/crane-mountain-lookout-site-lake-county/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Crane Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/cranemtn88.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Crane Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Oregon), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/crane-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Crane Mountain (lookout site), Oregon, peakbagging.com, http://www.peakbagging.com/ORLookoutPhotos/CraneMtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Crane Mountain Lookout 1958
Crane Mountain Lookout 1958 (1958)Photo: Howard Verschoor collection, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the location by 1.3 km (0.8 mi).

    • FFLOS: 42.07431, −120.24402
    • FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites): 42.06266, −120.24079

    The map uses the position from FFLOS.

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: 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, height, status, agency, access, 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.