Fire lookout · Marion County, Oregon
Lookout Mountain
Marion County, OR ODF lookout: 1938 tower destroyed by the 1962 Columbus Day Hurricane, 1965 portable-cab replacement; sources disagree on whether any tower stands today.
- Status unknown
- Access unknown
- Verified
Status unknown: We do not know yet whether it still stands. FFLA list shows standing; Forest Lookouts has a bare Removed note under its 1965 entry; firelookout.com says the superstructure is still there
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Access unknown
We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Staffing
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- sources disagree
- Type
- Cab on a tower82-foot timber tower with L-6 cab (1938, per Forest Lookouts); firelookout.com instead gives a 34-foot steel tower with 7x7 cabThe design: L-6
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1938
- Height
- 82 ft (25.0 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Oregon Department of Forestry (Clackamas-Marion unit)
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Marion County, Oregon
- Coordinates
- 44.87860, −122.39413
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-or-lookout-mountain-2
View from the cab
What you see from the 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.
Downloads about 4.1 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
- 1938 BuiltTower built; Forest Lookouts gives 82-foot timber tower with L-6 cab, firelookout.com gives 34-foot steel tower with 7x7 cabSources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
- 1938 StaffedChas. Pierce named as the lookout in a September 1938 Forest Log itemSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
- 1940 AlteredMill City CCC camp crews built a two-room cabin and wood-shed garage on the mountainSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1940 and 1962
- 1962 DestroyedColumbus Day Hurricane completely destroyed the Lookout Mountain tower (district report, October 12, 1962)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
- 1965 Replaced by a new structure30-foot steel tower with portable cab (Forest Lookouts); 40-foot crank-up tower with travel trailer living quarters (firelookout.com)Sources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
- TodayStatus unknownWe do not know whether it still stands.
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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Lookout Mountain lookout is listed under the Oregon Department of Forestry's Clackamas-Marion unit.1 The site sits about 20 miles southeast of Silverton, in Marion County.2
A tower went up on the peak in 1938.1 The Forest Lookouts history describes an 82-foot timber tower with an L-6 cab.1 A 1939 district report on the same page gives 100 feet, and firelookout.com describes a 34-foot steel tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab built in 1938.1,2 The sources do not agree on what was built, so treat the height and design here as uncertain.
A 1938 Forest Log item names Chas. Pierce as the lookout on Lookout Mountain.1 In 1940, crews from the Mill City CCC camp put up a two-room cabin and a combined wood shed and garage on the mountain.1
A 1962 district report says the Columbus Day Hurricane completely destroyed the tower.1 In 1965 a 30-foot steel tower went up with a portable cab.1 Vandalism was a constant problem, so the cab was taken apart into sections and removed during each off-season.1 firelookout.com instead says the 1965 replacement was a 40-foot crank-up tower with travel trailer living quarters, and that the superstructure is still there.2
The sources disagree on whether anything stands today. The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Oregon list shows a standing tower.3 The Forest Lookouts page has a bare "Removed" note under its 1965 entry, and it does not say whether that means the cab or the whole site.1 firelookout.com's entry is headed "R.I.P. 1938-?"2 We found no current access information. Ask the Oregon Department of Forestry before visiting, and do not climb any remaining structure.
- Lookout Mountain, FOREST LOOKOUTS, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/lookout-mountain2.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Lookout Mtn. (ODF) Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/lookoutmtnodf34.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Oregon lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Where sources disagree
We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.
Sources disagree on whether it still stands.
- Firefinder research: Status unknown
- FFLA: Standing
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: Gone
Research (2026-10-09) gives unknown where the source records give standing. The page shows the researched status; please tell us if it is wrong.
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: design, 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
- 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
- FFLA Oregon lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Lookout Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Lookout Mountain on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.