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Fire lookout · Lake County, Oregon

McCartie Ranch Lookout Site

Also known as Rodeo Butte

L-4 tower with a patrol crow's nest near Bly, Lake County; built in the 1940s, abandoned in the 1950s and gone. No source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in the 1950s and gone; no source we read describes what remains at the site

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 tower with a patrol crow's nest half a mile to the westThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1940
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,513 ft (1,680 m)
Agency
Fremont National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lake County, Oregon
Coordinates
42.55991, −121.03651 sources disagree
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-mccartie-ranch

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 3.6 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. 1940 BuiltBoth sources give only the 1940s; 1940 is not a confirmed yearSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1943 Event1943 newspaper reports of a lookout tower built on Rodeo Butte near Bly; not established as this siteSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1950 AbandonedAbandoned in the 1950s per both sources; 1950 marks the decade, not a confirmed yearSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1950 and 2019
  5. 2019 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: November 20, 2019Source: 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.

The McCartie Ranch lookout stood in Lake County, Oregon, about 9 miles north of Bly, on the Fremont National Forest.1,2 The site is roughly 1,680 meters up.1

Both sources say an L-4 tower went up on the site in the 1940s, with a patrol crow's nest half a mile to the west.1,2 The register's Built field gives only the decade, so no single build year is confirmed.1 A year of 1940 would go further than the sources do.1

Both sources say the lookout was abandoned in the 1950s.1,2 The register adds that it is gone.1

A lookout history page for Oregon quotes 1943 newspaper reports.3 A June item says two camps of about 30 high school boys were situated at Penny and Rodeo Springs.3 An August item says the boys at the Rodeo Springs camp built a lookout tower on Rodeo Butte.3 A 1941 item places Rodeo Butte near Bly.3 The sources do not say whether that tower is the same one as McCartie Ranch.3

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether visitors can reach it.1,2

  1. McCartie Ranch Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, firetower.org, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/mccartie-ranch-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. McCartie Ranch Fire Lookout Tower, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/mccartieranch.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Rodeo Butte, Forest Lookouts (Oregon), oregonlookouts.weebly.com, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/rodeo-butte.html (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 the location by 1.6 km (1.0 mi).

    • FFLA: 42.55991, −121.03651
    • FFLOS: 42.56115, −121.05545

    They share a register number.

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, 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: location, 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.