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Fire lookout · Linn County, Oregon

Red Butte Lookout Site (WNF)

Also known as Red Butte

Willamette NF summit lookout: 1920s shake cabin, L-4 cab in 1931, a lookout on duty in 1930, later abandoned and gone; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. FFLOS says the lookout was abandoned and is gone; no source 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
Ground-level cabL-4 cab (1931) per FFLOS and firelookout.com; Oregon Lookouts describes a 14 x 14 gable-roof lookout house insteadThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1920
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,843 ft (1,781 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Willamette National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Linn County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.50817, −121.87312
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-red-butte-wnf

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 3.5 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. 1920 Built'Built' field on FFLOS detail pageSource: FFLOS register entry
  2. 1930 StaffedAnthony Nuttman, lookout and smoke chaser, spent summers on the summit (1930 Daily Capital Journal item as quoted by Oregon Lookouts)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1931 Replaced by a new structureShake cabin replaced by an L-4 cab per FFLOS and firelookout.com; Oregon Lookouts instead dates a 14 x 14 gable-roof lookout house to about 1931Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1931 and 2019
  5. 2019 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered November 18, 2019 per FFLOS (US 1827, OR 550)Source: firetower.org
  6. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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 Red Butte lookout site sits in the Willamette National Forest, about 12 miles south of Mount Jefferson.1 The former lookout register gives its elevation as 5,843 feet, while a 1930 newspaper item quoted on the Oregon Lookouts page put the summit at 6,000 feet.2,3

A shake cabin went up on the site in the 1920s.2,1 The register and firelookout.com both say it was replaced by an L-4 cab in 1931.2,1 The Oregon Lookouts page describes the 1931 building differently, as a gable-roofed lookout house measuring 14 x 14 and dated to about 1931.3

An October 1930 Daily Capital Journal item, quoted on the Oregon Lookouts page, names Anthony Nuttman as a Forest Service lookout and smoke chaser who spent his summers on Red Butte's summit.3

The register says the lookout was abandoned at some later point and has since disappeared.2 Firelookout.com also lists it as abandoned,1 and the Oregon Lookouts page marks it as removed.3

We found no source that describes what, if anything, remains at the site now, or whether the public can reach it. Ask the Willamette National Forest before going out to look for it.

  1. Red Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/redbutte79.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Red Butte Lookout Site (WNF), Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/red-butte-lookout-site-wnf/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Red Butte - Forest Lookouts, Oregon Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/red-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Red Butte Lookout 1920's - 1931
Red Butte Lookout 1920's - 1931 (1920)Photo: Howard Verschoor collection, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Red Butte Lookout panoramic 9-30-1933
Red Butte Lookout panoramic 9-30-1933 (1933)Photo: National Archives-Pacific Northwest Region, 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, 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.