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Fire lookout · Clackamas County, Oregon

Oak Grove Butte Lookout Site

Mt. Hood NF site: 1915 rag camp, then a 1933 L-4 ground cabin; deactivated 1964 and removed or destroyed in 1967; no source describes the site now.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Register says the lookout was removed in 1967; the Fire Lookout website says the cabin was destroyed in 1967

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-4 ground cabin built 1933 (a 1959 entry calls the lookout a tower)The design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
4,623 ft (1,409 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Mt. Hood National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Clackamas County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.04868, −121.99033
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-oak-grove-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.9 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. 1915 EventUSFS set up a rag camp with an alidade platform and phone on the siteSource: firetower.org
  2. No record between 1915 and 1933
  3. 1933 BuiltL-4 ground cabin replaced the 1915 campSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  4. 1943 EventActivated July 12, 1943; deactivated October 1, 1943; Portland Filter CenterSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1954 EventMicrowave signals beamed to a reflector on the lookout station and bounced to the Three Lynx power plant (Sunday Oregonian item quoted on Rex's page)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1959 AlteredNew catwalk and railing completed on the lookout 'tower' (entry dated March 30, 1959, from a 1958 historical report, quoted on Rex's page); the word conflicts with the ground-cabin descriptionSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1964 EventRex's page says the lookout was de-activated in 1964Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  8. 1967 DestroyedFire Lookout website says the cabin was destroyed in 1967Source: firelookout.com
  9. 1967 RemovedRegister says the lookout was removed in 1967Source: firetower.org
  10. No record between 1967 and 2010
  11. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered September 19, 2010 as US 630, OR 64Source: firetower.org
  12. 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.

Oak Grove Butte sits within the Mt. Hood National Forest.1,2

The site's history starts in 1915, when the Forest Service set up a rag camp there with an alidade platform and a telephone.3 An L-4 ground cabin replaced that camp in 1933.3,1

The lookout was activated on July 12, 1943, and deactivated on October 1, 1943, with the Portland Filter Center listed beside those dates.2

A 1954 item from The Sunday Oregonian, quoted on Rex's page, describes a microwave relay: a transmitter at the dam site, a reflector on the lookout, and a receiver at the Three Lynx power plant.2

A 1959 entry, also quoted there, says a new catwalk and railing were finished on the Oak Grove Butte lookout "tower."2 That word does not match the ground-cabin description used elsewhere, and we could not tell which is right.

Rex's page says the lookout was de-activated in 1964.2 The register says it was removed in 1967.3 The Fire Lookout website says the cabin was destroyed in 1967.1 The sources differ on how it ended.3,1

No source describes what remains at the site today, or whether it is open to visitors.3,1,2

The Former Fire Lookout Sites register listed the site on September 19, 2010, as US 630, OR 64.3

  1. Oak Grove Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/oakgrovebutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Oak Grove Butte, Forest Lookouts (Rex's Fire Lookout Page), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/oak-grove-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Oak Grove Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/oak-grove-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Oak Grove Butte 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, 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, 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

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