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Fire lookout · Lake County, Oregon

Indian Butte Lookout Site

A 10-foot wooden L-4 lookout on Indian Butte in the Deschutes National Forest, built in 1932 and now gone; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The tower is gone. Neither the register nor firelookout.com gives a removal date.

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 towerL-4 cab on a 10-foot wooden towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1932
Height
10 ft (3.0 m)
Elevation
5,995 ft (1,827 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Deschutes National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Lake County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.55763, −121.15165
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-indian-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. 1930 EventA standard lookout house was planned for the butte (Morning Oregonian, August 1930)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1932 BuiltRegister and firelookout.com date the 10-foot tower to 1932; a 1934 Forest Service survey description agreesSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1932 First staffedAvon Derrick named as a Forest Service lookout on the butte, June 1932Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1939 FireLookout located a third fire within a week on Tom Butte, just south of Newberry Crater; the Tuesday fire touched two acresSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1939 and 2011
  6. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: June 4, 2011Source: FFLOS register entry
  7. 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.

Indian Butte, in Lake County, had a 10-foot wooden tower with an L-4 cab, built in 1932 in the Deschutes National Forest.1,2,3

Plans came first. In August 1930 the Morning Oregonian reported plans for a standard lookout house on the butte.3 In April 1931 a Bend paper said a fireman from Indian Springs would take the butte's lookout post.3 Papers of the period also call the summit Indian Spring Butte, which we take to be the same peak.3

In June 1932 a Lake County paper named Avon Derrick as a Forest Service lookout on the butte.3 A 1934 Forest Service survey description says the tower, built in 1932, was 10 feet high and supported a wood house.3

In July 1939 the Indian Butte lookout located a third fire within a week on Tom Butte, just south of Newberry Crater. That Tuesday fire touched two acres before it was suppressed.3

The register and firelookout.com both list the tower as gone, and the Oregon list agrees.1,2,4 The register holds a 2006 photograph of the site, but nothing we read describes what remains there now, and we found no current access information.1

  1. Indian Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, firetower.org, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/indian-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Indian Butte Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/indianbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Indian Butte, Forest Lookouts (Oregon), oregonlookouts.weebly.com, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/indian-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Oregon lookouts, alphabetical list, Fire Lookout Association, firelookout.org, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Indian Butte Lookout panoramic 6-22-1933
Indian Butte Lookout panoramic 6-22-1933 (1933)Photo: National Archives-Pacific Northwest Region, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Indian Butte Lookout site 2006
Indian Butte Lookout site 2006 (2006)Photo: Ron Kemnow, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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: 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
  5. 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.