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Fire lookout · Lincoln County, Oregon

Saddlebag Mountain Lookout Site

Lincoln County, OR L-5 lookout; sources give 1942 (30 ft) or 1953 (40 ft) for the tower, part-time staffing in 1952, removed 1969-1971. No site description found.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Dismantled in 1969 per the Lincoln FPA annual reports; the register and firelookout.com give 1971 (removed or destroyed)

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 towerL-5The design: L-5
Built of
Wood
Built
1942
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
3,250 ft (991 m)
Agency
Oregon Department of Forestry
Land
Unknown
Location
Lincoln County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.01120, −123.75599
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-saddlebag-mountain

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. 1942 BuiltDate given by the register and firelookout.com for a 30-foot wooden L-5 tower; conflicts with the 1953 construction in the annual reportsSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1952 StaffedPart-time schedule when visibility was poorSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1953 Built40-foot cedar pole tower with 10x10 cabin and 3-foot catwalk; total cost $1180.22Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1964 AlteredCab replaced at a cost of $1019.55Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1969 RemovedDismantled after several years of not being used; wind damage and vandalism made repairs too expensiveSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1971 RemovedRegister says removed; firelookout.com says destroyedSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  7. No record between 1971 and 2010
  8. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered November 15, 2010Source: firetower.org
  9. 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.

Saddlebag Mountain is a former lookout site in Lincoln County, Oregon, about 21 miles west-northwest of Dallas.1 The Oregon Department of Forestry administered the lookout.2,1,3

Sources disagree on when the first tower went up. The Former Fire Lookout Sites register and firelookout.com both date it to 1942 and describe a 30-foot wooden L-5 tower.2,1 The Lincoln FPA annual reports instead record a 40-foot cedar pole tower with a 10-by-10 cabin, built in 1953, with a total cost of $1180.22.3

In 1952 the annual report put the lookout on a part-time schedule and tied that to poor visibility.3

The reports list a lightning arrestor in 1954, shutters made and placed in 1956, and roof and shutter repairs in 1959 and 1960.3

The cab was replaced in 1964 at a cost of $1019.55.3 The lookout was dismantled in 1969 after several years of disuse. The report also said that wind damage and vandalism had made repairs too expensive.3 Other sources give 1971 instead.2,1 The register says it was removed then, and firelookout.com says it was destroyed.2,1

No source we checked describes what remains at the site today, or whether visitors can reach it.

  1. Saddlebag Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/saddlebagmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Saddlebag Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/saddlebag-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Saddlebag Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Oregon), Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/saddlebag-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, dates, 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: 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.