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Fire lookout · Deschutes County, Oregon

Cultus Mountain

Cultus Mountain lookout, Deschutes County, OR: 1925 or 1935 first tower, replaced 1958; abandoned 1963 per register, sold and burned 1968 per two others. Site today not described.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Register and FireLookout.com say abandoned 1963 and gone; Forest Lookouts and the Deschutes County Fire Lookouts blog give removal in 1968. No source describes remains.

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 tower20-foot round tower with a 10x10 L-5 cab (1935); 1958 replacement a 20-foot treated timber tower with an R-6 cabThe designs: L-5, R-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1925
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Deschutes National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Deschutes County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.92747, −122.76209
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-cultus-mountain

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 4.1 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 BuiltRegister and FireLookout.com date a 9x9 tower to 1925; Forest Lookouts and the Deschutes County Fire Lookouts blog list no 1925 towerSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1933 EventTelephone line planned to Cultus Mountain, the site to be developed as an emergency lookout pointSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1935 Built20-foot round tower with 10x10 L-5 cab; cost $947.24 per Forest LookoutsSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, deschuteslookouts.blogspot.com
  4. No record between 1935 and 1957
  5. 1957 EventDeschutes National Forest announces plans for a lookout house on a high peak; helicopter may be neededSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1958 Replaced by a new structureBids called for tower and lookout house; successful bidder to remove old lookout buildings; register says 20-foot treated timber R-6 towerSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, deschuteslookouts.blogspot.com
  7. 1963 AbandonedRegister and FireLookout.com say abandoned in 1963Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  8. 1968 RemovedForest Lookouts: sold as surplus, stripped, remainder burned; Deschutes County Fire Lookouts blog gives removal 1968Sources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, deschuteslookouts.blogspot.com
  9. 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.

Cultus Mountain is a volcanic cone of about 6,750 feet in the eastern Cascades, south of Elk Lake.1 A lake of the same name lies nearby, and the peak looks out over the southern part of the Deschutes National Forest.1 The Former Fire Lookout Sites Register places the site in Deschutes County, Oregon.2

The sources disagree about the first tower. The register and FireLookout.com date a 9-by-9 tower to 1925.2,3 Forest Lookouts and the Deschutes County Fire Lookouts blog list no 1925 tower.1,4 They describe a telephone line planned in 1933 to make the peak an emergency lookout point, then a 20-foot round tower with a 10-by-10 L-5 cab built in 1935.1,4 Forest Lookouts gives the cost of that structure as $947.24.1

In 1957 the Deschutes National Forest announced plans for a lookout house on a high peak, and a helicopter might be needed to haul in materials.1 A 1958 call for bids for a tower and lookout house said the successful bidder would have to remove the old lookout buildings.1 The register says the L-5 tower was replaced that year by a 20-foot treated timber tower with an R-6 cab.2,4

The lookout's end is also recorded two ways. The register and FireLookout.com say it was abandoned in 1963 and is now gone.2,3 Forest Lookouts and the Deschutes County Fire Lookouts blog give 1968 as the removal year.1,4 Forest Lookouts says the lookout was sold as surplus, stripped, and the rest burned.1 We could not reconcile those dates, so both are given.

The register and FireLookout.com both call the lookout gone.2,3 No source we read describes what, if anything, is on the mountain today or whether visitors can reach it.

  1. Cultus Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts (Oregon), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/cultus-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Cultus Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://www.firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/cultus-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Cultus Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, FireLookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/cultusmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Deschutes County Fire Lookouts, Deschutes County Fire Lookouts blog, https://deschuteslookouts.blogspot.com/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. 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.