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Fire lookout · Deschutes County, Oregon

Round Mountain Lookout

1933 14x14 L-4 cab on Round Mountain, Deschutes National Forest; staffed in summer, standing at a 2023 visit, NHLR-registered 2003.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. Cheryl Hill's standing-lookout list marks it accessible to the public. A 2023 visitor parked at a gate and walked up the road; staffed in summer and shut up for winter.

Can you climb it?
Yes
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Park at the gate and walk the road up; a 2023 visitor walked 1.4 miles.
Staffing
Staffed during fire season

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Ground-level cab14 by 14 foot L-4 hip-roof ground cabinThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,835 ft (1,779 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Deschutes County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.75752, −121.71092
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-round-mountain-2

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

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. 1928 EventEmergency lookout stationed on the summit July 26, before the permanent cabSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1930 EventEmergency lookout placed on Round Mountain, August 9Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1933 Built14x14 L-4 hip-roof cab completed at a cost of $709.89; Forest Lookouts notes construction in 1932Sources: nhlr.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, cherylhill.net
  4. 1934 Event14x18 wood-frame garage built to plan T-1ESource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1935 EventLightning apparently struck the lookout house while Gilbert Bowe was stationed there; conductors carried the bolts into the earthSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1943 StaffedSherwood Jerome, 17, stationed on Round MountainSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1945 StaffedElizabeth Randell, a Prineville schoolteacher, assigned to the summitSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  8. No record between 1945 and 1994
  9. 1994 FireLookout evacuated during the Four Corners fireSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  10. 2001 FireLookout evacuated August 18 during the Crane FireSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  11. 2003 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered March 1, 2003 as US 468, OR 65Source: nhlr.org
  12. 2017 AlteredNew shutters installed; each built to fit its own windowSource: cherylhill.net
  13. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Round Mountain is a lookout on a black lava knoll in the Deschutes National Forest, about 12 miles northwest of La Pine.1,2 The U.S. Forest Service administers it, and the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District is listed as a cooperator.1

The summit had lookouts before the cab was built.3 Forest Lookouts, which quotes The Bend Bulletin, records emergency lookouts there in July 1928 and August 1930.3 In August 1932 the paper reported that one of eight planned lookout houses would be built on a massive rock here.3

Forest Lookouts gives 1933 as the year the 14-by-14-foot L-4 hip-roof house was completed, at a cost of $709.89.3 The Register and Cheryl Hill also date the build to 1933,1,4 but a note on the same page says the station was built in 1932 and observed in 1933, so the build year is disputed.3 A 14-by-18-foot wood-frame garage built to plan T-1E followed in 1934.3

Gilbert Bowe was stationed there in July 1935 when lightning apparently struck the house.3 Its conductors sent the bolts into the ground.3 In 1943 a newspaper reported that 17-year-old Sherwood Jerome, posted to the summit, saw signs of fire before the other district lookouts did.3 In 1945 Elizabeth Randell, a Prineville schoolteacher and former lookout, was assigned to the top of the mountain.3 The lookout was evacuated during the 1994 Four Corners fire and again on August 18, 2001, during the Crane Fire.3

Cheryl Hill dates the deck to the 1980s and the new shutters to 2017.4 The building has moved over the years and no longer sits square, so each shutter had to be made for its own window.4

The Register listed the lookout on March 1, 2003, as US 468, OR 65.1 It gives the elevation as 5,835 feet, while firelookout.com and Cheryl Hill give about 5,900 feet.1,2,4

Cheryl Hill visited in November 2023, when the lookout was staffed in summer and shut up for the winter.4 The firelookout.com page also says it is staffed every summer.2 Cheryl Hill's standing-lookout list marks it accessible to the public, while warning that its data may be out of date.5 The 2023 visitor parked at a gate and walked 1.4 miles up the road.4 The cab was still standing at that visit, about ninety years after it was built.4

Before going, check with the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District about summer staffing and the gate, since the most recent visit described here is from 2023.4

  1. Round Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/or/round-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Round Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/roundmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Round Mountain, Forest Lookouts (oregonlookouts.weebly.com), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/round-mountain1.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Round Mountain, Every Lookout in Oregon (cherylhill.net), https://cherylhill.net/firelookouts/2023/11/11/round-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  5. Oregon standing lookouts list, Every Lookout in Oregon (cherylhill.net), https://cherylhill.net/firelookouts/oregons-standing-lookouts/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Photo of Round Mountain Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Round Mtn. in 1933
Round Mtn. in 1933 (1933)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum and Gary Weber, via firelookout.com · source
Round Mtn. L.O.
Round Mtn. L.OPhoto: the Fire Lookout Museum and Gary Weber, via firelookout.com · 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. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.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: what it is built of, design, staffing, photos, 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. Every Lookout in Oregon (Cheryl Hill) Gave us: links Every Lookout in Oregon (Cheryl Hill, cherylhill.net) · No licence stated; facts only (name, agency, elevation, year built, design and height, status word, links). Posts' narrative and photos are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  6. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, visiting details, 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.