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Fire lookout · Klamath County, Oregon

Fort Klamath Lookout Site

Forest Service lookout at Fort Klamath, Klamath County: 20-ft steel tower built 1958, airlifted to Sugarpine Mountain in 1970. The Fort Klamath site has no tower now.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower airlifted to Sugarpine Mountain in 1970 and now stands there; the Fort Klamath site has no tower.

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 CL-100 steel live-in towerThe design: CL-100
Built of
Steel
Built
1958
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
4,200 ft (1,280 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Klamath County, Oregon
Coordinates
42.70474, −121.99862
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-fort-klamath

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.

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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1948 StaffedLookout James D. Hale to be stationed at Fort Klamath (June 1948 item)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1949 StaffedPost assigned to Mr. and Mrs. Brady Broxson (called the Grange Hall tower)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1955 EventFire Control approved a lookout in the Fort Klamath area to cover the Seven-Mile and Three-Mile areasSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1958 Built20-foot CL-100 steel live-in tower built at the southwest edge of Fort Klamath, in a valley bottomSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
  5. 1964 FireTower guard observed a fire in a logged area and reported it to the Lake of the Woods ranger stationSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1970 MovedTower airlifted to Sugarpine Mountain, Winema National ForestSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, nhlr.org
  7. No record between 1970 and 2011
  8. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered May 20, 2011 as US 1023, OR 381Source: firetower.org
  9. 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.

The first Fort Klamath lookout, according to the Former Fire Lookout Sites register, was an elevated platform over the community center, mainly in use during the 1940s and 1950s.1 A 1949 item quoted on a Rex's Fire Lookout Page calls the post a Grange Hall tower, so the early set-up is described differently from one source to the next.2

Forest Service lookouts were posted there in the late 1940s.2 In June 1948 a lookout named James D. Hale was to be stationed at Fort Klamath, and in 1949 the post went to Mr. and Mrs. Brady Broxson.2

The Forest Service had a reason to want the station.2 In 1955 the forest felt there was a definite gap in its coverage over the Seven-Mile and Three-Mile areas, and Fire Control approved a lookout in the Fort Klamath area to cover them.2

The steel tower was built in 1958 on the southwest side of town. The register calls it a 20-foot CL-100 steel live-in tower.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association says the tower sat at the bottom of a valley instead of a mountaintop, one of the strangest lookout locations in Oregon.3

The station did detection work.2 In July 1964 the tower guard spotted a fire in a logged area and reported it to the Lake of the Woods ranger station, which sent crews.2

In 1970 the tower was airlifted to Sugarpine Mountain. The move also left the Round Butte lookout unnecessary and cut the need for a Yamsay Mountain tower.2 The National Historic Lookout Register records the structure as relocated from Fort Klamath that year and originally built in 1958.4

The original site has no tower now.5 No source describes what, if anything, remains at the spot or whether it is open to visitors. The tower itself stands on Sugarpine Mountain in the Winema National Forest, and the association's Oregon list records it as standing.4,5 It is staffed every summer, according to the association's Sugarpine Mountain page.6

  1. Fort Klamath Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/fort-klamath-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Fort Klamath, Rex's Fire Lookout Page (Forest Lookouts), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/fort-klamath.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Fort Klamath Fire Lookout Tower, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.firelookout.com/or/fortklamath.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Sugarpine Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/or/sugarpine-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Oregon Fire Lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  6. Sugarpine Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.firelookout.com/or/sugarpinemtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Fort Klamath Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Fort Klamath Lookout Site
Photo: 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, height, status, agency, staffing, 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

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