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Fire lookout · Hood River County, Oregon

Mill Creek Butte Lookout Site

Hood River County lookout: a 9x9 cab built in 1937, replaced by a 41-foot treated timber L-4 tower in 1948, gone by 1972.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1972 per the register and firelookout.com; Rex's notes give 1972 for removal

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 tower9x9 foot cab (1937), replaced in 1948 by a 41-foot treated timber L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1937
Height
41 ft (12.5 m)
Elevation
4,913 ft (1,498 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Hood River County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.44642, −121.52316
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-mill-creek-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 3.4 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. 1934 StaffedBob Rush recorded as emergency lookout; the register dates the first cab to 1937Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1937 Built9x9 foot cab built on the siteSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  3. 1948 Replaced by a new structure41-foot treated timber L-4 tower replaced the cab; Rex's notes quote a 1948 district report saying a contractor built the towerSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1948 and 1963
  5. 1963 AlteredPainted during the summer by tower personnelSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1966 AlteredTwo shutters installed after earlier ones were torn off when the tower was broken intoSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1972 RemovedGone by 1972 per register and firelookout.com; Rex's notes say removed in 1972Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  8. No record between 1972 and 2010
  9. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: August 26, 2010Source: FFLOS register entry
  10. 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.

Mill Creek Butte, in Hood River County's Mount Hood region, had a 9-by-9-foot cab built in 1937, according to the register and firelookout.com.1,2 The register says a 41-foot treated timber L-4 tower replaced that cab in 1948.1,2 The register also lists the U.S. Forest Service as the administering agency.1

Rex's notes name an emergency lookout, Bob Rush, in 1934, three years before the register's first cab. His other duties included truck driving.3 Rex's notes also quote a 1948 Hood River District report, logged January 6, 1949, that says a contractor constructed the tower. The register dates the tower to 1948.3,1

Tower personnel painted the lookout during the summer of 1963. In 1966 two shutters were installed to replace earlier ones that had been torn away in a break-in.3

The register and firelookout.com say the site was gone by 1972, and Rex's notes record the lookout removed that year.1,2,3

None of the sources I read describes what remains at the site, or whether the spot can be visited today.

  1. Mill Creek Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, firetower.org, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/mill-creek-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Mill Creek Butte Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/millcreekbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Mill Creek Butte, Forest Lookouts, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/mill-creek-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Mill Creek Butte Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Mill Creek Butte Lookout Site, 1945
(1945)Photo: Fire Lookout Museum, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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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, 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

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