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Fire lookout · Wallowa County, Oregon

Fairchild Point Lookout Site

Wallowa County lookout whose cab was moved to Buckhorn in 1952; the cab still stands at Buckhorn Overlook and the original tower site is gone.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The tower is gone; its cab was moved to Buckhorn in 1952 and stood there, crumbling, at a 2023 visit

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. The cab at Buckhorn Overlook is a tourist stop reached from Enterprise on Highway 82 and then several named and numbered roads; no source gives access to the original Fairchild Point site

Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1942
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,351 ft (1,631 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Wallowa-Whitman National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Wallowa County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.83214, −116.97717
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-fairchild-point

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 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. 1936 StaffedFirelookout.com lists J.R. Stubblefield as known lookout personnel in 1936Source: firelookout.com
  2. 1942 BuiltRegister gives 1942, with a 1942 photo caption; firelookout.com says the tower dates from the 1930s. The sources disagreeSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  3. 1952 MovedCab lowered from the Fairchild tower and moved to Buckhorn; Rex, the NHLR and firelookout.com all give 1952Sources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1952 and 2011
  5. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: July 27, 2011Source: FFLOS register entry
  6. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Fairchild Point sits in Wallowa County on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, where it carried a 30-foot pole L-4 tower.1,2 The sources disagree on when it was built. The register says 1942, and a photo caption in the register is dated 1942 as well.1 Firelookout.com describes a tower from the 1930s and names J.R. Stubblefield as a known lookout in 1936.2

A 1954 history of the Wallowa National Forest, quoted on Rex's page, says the cab was lowered from the tower in the fall of 1952 and went to Buckhorn Point to serve as a new lookout for part of the Chesnimus District.3 The NHLR and firelookout.com also date that move to 1952.4,2 The register describes the Fairchild Point tower as now gone.1

The cab now stands at Buckhorn, not at Fairchild Point.4,5 The sources use three names for that spot: Buckhorn Point in the 1954 history, Buckhorn Mountain in the NHLR, and Buckhorn Overlook in a 2023 visit report.3,4,5 The NHLR describes it as a Forest Service L-4 ground cabin with a catwalk, set on short stone aggregate piers.4 A June 2023 visit report says the lookout and its garage still stand but are deteriorating, and that the spot is now a tourist stop with a view of the Imnaha River.5 To get there, drive 3.5 miles east from Enterprise on Highway 82, then take Crow Creek Road, Zumwalt Road and several numbered roads to the parking area.5 No one has staffed the lookout since the 1970s.5

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the original Fairchild Point site, and we found nothing on its current access.

  1. Fairchild Point Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/fairchild-point-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Fairchild Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/fairchildpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Fairchild Point - Forest Lookouts, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/fairchild-point.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Buckhorn Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/or/buckhorn-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Buckhorn Lookout, Every Lookout in Oregon (Cheryl Hill), https://cherylhill.net/firelookouts/2023/07/17/buckhorn-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Fairchild Point Lookout 1942
Fairchild Point Lookout 1942 (1942)Photo: Ron Kemnow collection, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Fairchild Point Lookout site 2010
Fairchild Point Lookout site 2010 (2010)Photo: Howard Verschoor, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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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: 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, access, visiting details, 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.