Fire lookout · Coos County, Oregon
Elk Mountain Lookout Site (Coos County)
Also known as Elk Mountain
Coos County, OR: 50-foot wooden tower built in 1965 by the Coos Forest Protective Association near Sitkum; removed or dismantled in 1989 or the 1980s; no source describes the site today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower removed around 1989 (register and firelookout.com) or in the 1980s (a Dora event report in The World); no source describes what 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
- Type
- Cab on a tower50-foot wooden live-in tower with a 14-by-14-foot cabin (CT3 per Forest Lookouts)The design: Region 6 timber towers (CT, TT)
- Built of
- Wood
- Built
- 1965
- Height
- 50 ft (15.2 m)
- Elevation
- 2,328 ft (710 m)
- Agency
- Coos Forest Protective Association (listed as Coos FPA)
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Coos County, Oregon
- Coordinates
- 43.13336, −123.92513
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-or-elk-mountain-coos-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
- 1965 Built50-foot tower with a 14 x 14 cabin; register and firelookout.com give 1965, Forest Lookouts quotes a 1965 Coos District annual reportSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
- 1965 First staffedLookouts in the Elk Mountain tower began scanning for smoke over Dora, Sitkum and the surrounding areaSource: theworldlink.com
- No record between 1965 and 1989
- 1989 RemovedRegister says removed in 1989; firelookout.com says destroyed in 1989; The World's Dora event report says dismantled in the 1980sSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, theworldlink.com
- No record between 1989 and 2010
- 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered December 10, 2010; nominated by Ray KresekSource: firetower.org
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Elk Mountain lookout in Coos County stood at 2,328 feet, or 710 meters, about three miles southwest of Sitkum.1,2 Firelookout.com places the site 13 miles east-southeast of Coquille.3
The Coos Forest Protective Association had a second tower ready on Elk Mountain in 1965, after an older tower near Brewster Rock was decommissioned following the summer of 1964.4 The register describes the Elk Mountain tower as a 50-foot wooden live-in tower built in 1965.1,3 The Forest Lookouts page quotes a 1965 Coos District annual report describing a 50-foot CT3 tower with a 14-by-14 cabin, built with a $4,000 credit from the State Restoration Fund, tied to the loss of Brushy Bald Lookout.2
From 1965 on, lookouts in the Elk Mountain tower scanned for smoke near Dora and Sitkum. The forests around the East Fork of the Coquille River had earlier been watched from the Brewster Rock tower, and later from Elk Mountain.4
The register says the tower was removed in 1989, while firelookout.com says it was destroyed that year.1,3 A report on a Dora event in The World says it was dismantled in the 1980s.4 The sources agree on roughly when the tower came down and differ on how it ended.1,3,4
No source we read describes what remains at the site today.1,3
- Elk Mountain Lookout Site (Coos County), Former Fire Lookout Sites register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/elk-mountain-lookout-site-coos-county/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Elk Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Oregon), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/elk-mountain2.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Elk Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.com), https://www.firelookout.com/or/elkmtn62.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Champion trees and lookout towers discussed at Dora event, The World (theworldlink.com), https://theworldlink.com/community/champion-trees-and-lookout-towers-discussed-at-dora-event/article_53575795-7d1c-50bd-b46c-a2c5a7ab30c2.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, 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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) 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
- 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
- FFLOS register entry US 793 (firetower.org) (opens another site)
- Champion trees and lookout towers discussed at Dora event (The World (theworldlink.com)) (opens another site)
- FFLA Oregon lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Elk Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Elk Mountain on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.