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Fire lookout · Clackamas County, Oregon

Goat Mountain

Clackamas County tower 11 miles SSE of Estacada: 1949-50 tower collapsed under ice, rebuilt 1951 at 82 ft; cab removed 1970; a July 1985 entry shows a bare timber tower.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The Oregon list marks it gone, but a July 16, 1985 Forest Lookouts entry describes an 82-foot timber tower without a cab on the site; the current condition is not described

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 tower14-by-14 cab on an 82-foot tower after the 1951 rebuild (Forest Lookouts); firelookout.com gives an 84-foot wooden L-6 tower in the 1930sThe design: L-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
82 ft (25.0 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Oregon Department of Forestry
Land
Unknown
Location
Clackamas County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.13142, −122.29632
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-goat-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 its recorded height.

Downloads about 3.8 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. 1930 Builtfirelookout.com dates the first tower to the 1930s (84-foot wooden L-6); no other source gives an early dateSource: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1930 and 1949
  3. 1949 Replaced by a new structureAgency newsletter reports a new 70-foot tower in use; a district report gives an 82-foot tower with a 14-by-14 cab built that yearSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1950 DestroyedTower went down January 14, 1950 under snow, ice and wind; a March report on the wreckage gives the cause as ice from a sleet stormSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1951 RebuiltRebuilt after a redesign for heavy icing; 1951 district report lists a 14-by-14 cab on an 82-foot towerSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1955 AlteredLookout painted; metal roof replaced with cedar shinglesSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1967 Moved75-foot steel tower moved to Goat Mountain from Frog Lake Butte; the Frog Lake record says it was moved to serve as a radio towerSources: firelookout.com, firetower.org
  8. 1970 RemovedCab taken off, floor left as a platform (survey note); firelookout.com says the structure was converted to an antenna towerSources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
  9. No record between 1970 and 1985
  10. 1985 EventForest Lookouts entry dated July 16, 1985 describes an 82-foot treated timber tower without a cab occupying the siteSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  11. 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.

Goat Mountain sits about 11 miles south-southeast of Estacada in Clackamas County, Oregon.1,2 Firelookout.com names the Oregon Department of Forestry as the agency.1

Firelookout.com dates the first tower to the 1930s and describes it as an 84-foot wooden L-6 tower.1 In 1949 an agency newsletter reported a new 70-foot tower in use on the mountain.2 A district report from that year gives an 82-foot tower topped by a 14-by-14 cab, so the two heights disagree.2

On January 14, 1950, the tower went down under snow, ice and wind.2 Newspapers blamed the snow and ice. A district warden also said deep snow had kept crews from reaching the tower.2 A March report on the wreckage pointed to ice from a sleet storm as the cause.2

The directors of the Clackamas-Marion Forest protective association decided on February 24, 1950, to rebuild. A redesign for heavy icing was completed with the U.S. Forest Service, and a 1951 report lists a 14-by-14 cab on an 82-foot tower.2

Firelookout.com says a 75-foot steel tower was moved to Goat Mountain in 1967. The Frog Lake Butte record says it was moved there to serve as a radio tower, after the steel tower was built at Frog Lake in 1932.1,3

In 1970 the cab came off, and a survey note says the floor was left as a platform.2 Firelookout.com says the structure was converted to an antenna tower.1 An entry dated July 16, 1985 describes an 82-foot treated timber tower without a cab on the site.2 That is the latest description we found.

The Oregon list marks the site as gone, which is hard to square with the 1985 entry unless the tower came down later.4,2 A 1953 survey note placed the site on land owned by the Crown Zellerbach Corporation.2 We found nothing that says who owns the land now, or whether the public can reach the summit.

  1. Goat Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/goatmtn33.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Goat Mountain, Forest Lookouts (western US), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/goat-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Frog Lake Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/frog-lake-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Oregon Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. 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
  3. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: height, agency, 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
  4. 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.