FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Harney County, Oregon

Emigrant Butte

Emigrant Butte lookout, Harney County, OR: house built 1921, 20-foot L-4 tower 1933, gone by the 1940s. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Register and FireLookout.com say the tower was gone by the 1940s; 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 towerLookout house with cupola (1921); 20-foot L-4 tower (1933)The designs: L-4, Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1921
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Ochoco National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Harney County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.29368, −119.04274
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-emigrant-butte

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 3.9 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. 1921 BuiltRanger E.W. Donnelly built a lookout house (Central Oregonian, November 10, 1921); register dates a house with cupola to 1921Sources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1922 RebuiltA new box-type house with glassed cupola for the fire finder (dated September 14, 1922); Thomas Ewing in charge that summer; register does not mention itSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1929 StaffedAl Frey, then Lester Williams for the rest of the season; Jack Choate from Dry Mountain in the autumnSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1933 Replaced by a new structure20-foot L-4 tower replaced the house; W.H. Lohuis building the tower and house as one of several NRA projectsSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1939 EventForest Service request for approval of a combined garage, woodshed and storage building at the lookout (letter dated August 19, 1939)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1940 RemovedTower gone by the 1940s per register and FireLookout.com; exact year not givenSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  7. 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.

Emigrant Butte rises in the Ochoco National Forest, about 24 miles northwest of Burns, in Harney County, Oregon.1,2

The earliest recorded lookout here was a house.3 Ranger E.W. Donnelly built one in 1921, and the register dates a house with a cupola to that year.3,1 In September 1922 a newer house went up, a box-type building with a glassed-in cupola for the fire finder.3 Thomas Ewing, of Brothers, was in charge of the station that summer.3

The post changed hands during the 1929 season.3 Al Frey was the lookout until he took a winter job, and Lester Williams took over for the rest of the season.3 Jack Choate came over from Dry Mountain that autumn when Williams left.3

In October 1933 W.H. Lohuis was building a lookout tower and house there, one of several NRA projects.3 The register says a 20-foot L-4 tower replaced the house that year.1

In 1939 the Forest Service asked for approval to build a combined garage, woodshed and storage building at the lookout.3

The register and FireLookout.com both say the tower was gone by the 1940s.1,2 The register has a photo of the site captioned 2008.1 No source we read describes what is there now or whether the public can visit.

  1. Emigrant Butte Lookout Site (Harney County), Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://www.firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/emigrant-butte-lookout-site-harney-county/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Emigrant Butte Fire Lookout Tower, FireLookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/emigrantbutte96.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Emigrant Butte - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts (Oregon), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/emigrant-butte.html (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.