FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Josephine County, Oregon

Lake Mountain Lookout Site

L-5 cab on Lake Mountain in the Siskiyou NF, built 1937 or 1938 and blown down in a 1953 windstorm; ruins may remain.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Blown down in 1953; no source describes the site 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 cabL-5 cabThe design: L-5
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1937
Height
Unknown
Elevation
6,649 ft (2,027 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Josephine County, Oregon
Coordinates
42.09520, −123.36468
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-lake-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

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. 1937 BuiltL-5 cab on the northernmost point; two other sources give 1938Sources: firetower.org, digital.sou.edu
  2. 1941 StaffedStaffed 89 days; reported to the Redwood Ranger StationSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1953 DestroyedBlew down in a strong windstorm; the county blog gives 1954 for removalSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1953 and 2011
  5. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: March 24, 2011Source: FFLOS register entry
  6. 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.

An L-5 cab was built on the northernmost point of Lake Mountain, in the Siskiyou National Forest.1 The site lies about 16 miles east-southeast of Cave Junction, in Josephine County.2 The sources disagree on the year. The register and a Siskiyou National Forest inventory give 1937, while a lookout history site and a Josephine County blog say 1938.1,3,4,5 The history site and the blog both describe a 10 by 10 cabin, and the blog calls it a ground house.4,5

In 1941 the lookout was manned for 89 days and filed its reports with the Redwood Ranger Station.4

The cab blew down in a strong windstorm in 1953.1,4 The county blog gives 1954 as the removal year and says a wind storm destroyed the house.5

The register says ruins may remain at the site.1 The history site adds that about fifty years after the storm, much of the debris still lay on the hillside.4 No source I found describes access to the site today, so check with the Siskiyou National Forest before you go.

  1. Lake Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/lake-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Lake Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/lakemtn63.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Historic Fire Lookouts on the Siskiyou National Forest: Cultural Property Inventory, Southern Oregon University Digital Collections, https://digital.sou.edu/digital/api/collection/p16085coll18/id/41128/download (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Lake Mountain - Forest Lookouts, Oregon forest lookouts history site, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/lake-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Josephine County Fire Lookouts, blog, https://josephinelookouts.blogspot.com/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Lake Mountain Lookout Site
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, 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: what it is built of, design, 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.