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Fire lookout · Baker County, Oregon

Dooley Mountain Lookout Site

Baker County, OR cab site in the Wallowa-Whitman NF: registers date an L-4 cab to 1936 and its abandonment to 1947, but a 1958 newspaper shows it staffed. Now gone.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Register and firelookout.com list the cab as gone; no source describes what remains at 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
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1936
Height
Unknown
Elevation
6,151 ft (1,875 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Wallowa-Whitman National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Baker County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.58244, −117.83097
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-dooley-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.7 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. 1936 BuiltRegister and firelookout.com both give 1936 as the year of the L-4 cabSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1947 AbandonedRegister and firelookout.com both give 1947; the July 1958 item conflicts with this dateSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  3. 1958 StaffedJuly 24, 1958 Baker Record-Courier item, quoted on Forest Lookouts: a couple and their infant son on duty for the summerSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1958 and 2011
  5. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered July 27, 2011; nominated by Ray KresekSource: firetower.org
  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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Former Fire Lookout Sites register says a lookout cab was built on Dooley Mountain in 1936. It was an L-4 cab. The register dates its abandonment to 1947 and lists the cab as gone.1 firelookout.com gives the same 1936 and 1947 dates.2 Both place the site in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, and firelookout.com puts it about 14 miles south of Baker City.1,2

The record gets murky after 1947. A Forest Lookouts page quotes a July 1958 Baker Record-Courier item that found a couple and their infant son on duty at the Dooley Mountain lookout for the summer.3 That is eleven years after the 1947 abandonment date.1,3 Either the 1947 date is wrong or the lookout was used again, and the sources do not settle which. firelookout.com also says the site may not have actually been used.2

A road history of the summit mentions a radar station that has since been dismantled. It says the old road crossed the summit a short distance west of that station.4 The history does not say whether the radar station stood near the lookout site.4

We found no source that describes the lookout site today. The register and firelookout.com both list it as gone, but neither describes what remains or whether the summit is open to visitors.1,2

  1. Dooley Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites register, firetower.org, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/dooley-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Dooley Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/dooleymtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Dooley Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Rex's Fire Lookout Page), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/dooley-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Dooley Mountain, Baker County, Oregon, Oregon Genealogy, https://www.oregongenealogy.com/baker/historybc/dooley_mountain.htm (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, ownership, 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: 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.