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Fire lookout · Deschutes County, Oregon

Pistol Butte Lookout Site

Deschutes County, OR: 20-foot L-4 lookout built 1933, emergency status 1952, removed or destroyed by 1969; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Register says removed by 1969 and firelookout.com says destroyed by 1969; no source describes what remains

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 tower20-foot round timber pole tower with a 14 by 14 foot L-4 hip-roof lookout cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1933
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
5,154 ft (1,571 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Deschutes National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Deschutes County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.81386, −121.55656
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-pistol-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 3.6 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. 1932 EventBend Bulletin, August 13, 1932: a 30-foot tower approved for the butte; the tower built was 20 feetSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1933 BuiltCompleted in 1933 at a cost of $1,172.94 per Forest Lookouts; register says built 1933; firelookout.com says 1932Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1933 StaffedFrederick H. Vogel was to be stationed on the butte for the summer (Bend Bulletin item of June 19, 1933)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1933 and 1952
  5. 1952 EventTower went to emergency statusSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  6. 1954 EventLookout training held at the towerSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. No record between 1954 and 1969
  8. 1969 RemovedRegister says removed by 1969; firelookout.com says destroyed by 1969Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  9. No record between 1969 and 2011
  10. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered May 12, 2011 as US 982, OR 340; nominated by Ray KresekSource: firetower.org
  11. 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.

Pistol Butte stands about 19 miles southwest of Bend, in the Deschutes National Forest.1 A Bend Bulletin item from August 1932 described a 30-foot tower approved for the butte.2 The tower completed in 1933 was 20 feet tall, a round timber tower with a 14-by-14-foot L-4 hip-roof cab that cost $1,172.94.2

Sources disagree on the build year. The Former Fire Lookout Sites register and Forest Lookouts give 1933, while firelookout.com gives 1932.3,1,2

Frederick Vogel, who had married that June, was slated to spend the summer on the butte as a Forest Service lookout.2 That August he used his fire finder on the full moon, and the Bend Bulletin reported that his estimate was within 65 miles of the moon's 2,162-mile diameter.2 In 1954 the tower hosted lookout training.2

The tower went to emergency status in 1952.3,1 The register says it was removed by 1969, while firelookout.com says it was destroyed by then.3,1

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether the summit is open to visitors.

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

Photos

Photo of Pistol Butte Lookout Site
Photo: 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: design, height, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.