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Fire lookout · Clackamas County, Oregon

Indian Ridge Lookout Site (Mt. Hood)

Also known as Indian Ridge

Clackamas County, OR site: 1923 open shelter with cupola, 1932 ground cabin, deactivated 1964, destroyed 1969 or removed by 1970; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed; register says removed by 1970, Forest Fire Lookout Association says destroyed in 1969. No source describes what remains today.

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
Ground-level cab1923 open-sided shelter with windowless cupola; 1932 ground cabin (L-5 per register, L-4 per Forest Fire Lookout Association)The designs: L-4, L-5
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1923
Height
Unknown
Elevation
4,308 ft (1,313 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Clackamas County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.18288, −122.02476
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-indian-ridge-mt-hood

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 4.0 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. 1923 BuiltFirst lookout: open-sided shelter with windowless cupola on the roofSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1932 BuiltGround cabin; register says L-5, Forest Fire Lookout Association says L-4Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  3. No record between 1932 and 1956
  4. 1956 AlteredPainting job at the lookoutSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1958 AlteredLinoleum laid on the floor; aerial markings paintedSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1964 AbandonedLookout deactivatedSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1969 DestroyedForest Fire Lookout Association: destroyed in 1969Source: firelookout.com
  8. 1970 RemovedRegister: removed by 1970Source: firetower.org
  9. No record between 1970 and 2010
  10. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: August 26, 2010Source: FFLOS register entry
  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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Indian Ridge lies about 20 miles southwest of Mount Hood, in Clackamas County, Oregon, and the U.S. Forest Service administered the lookout site.1,2

The first structure was an open-sided shelter with a windowless cupola on the roof, which the register dates to 1923.1,2 In 1932 a ground cabin went up. The register calls it an L-5 cabin,1 while the Forest Fire Lookout Association calls it an L-4 cabin built that year.2

Forest Lookouts records a painting job at the lookout in 1956. In 1958 linoleum went down on the floor, and aerial markings were painted on the lookout.3

The lookout was deactivated in 1964.3 The sources disagree about its end. The Forest Fire Lookout Association says the cabin was destroyed in 1969,2 and the register says it was removed by 1970.1 Forest Lookouts lists the site simply as removed.3

No source we read describes what remains at the site today.

  1. Indian Ridge Lookout Site (Mt. Hood), Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/indian-ridge-lookout-site-mt-hood/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Indian Ridge Fire Lookout Cabin, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://www.firelookout.com/or/indianridge.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Indian Ridge, Forest Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/indian-ridge.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Indian Ridge Lookout Site (Mt. Hood)
Photo: 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: 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, 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.