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Fire lookout · Josephine County, Oregon

Silver Peak Lookout Site

Siskiyou NF, OR: L-4 ground cab dated 1940 (1941 per weebly); removed 1968 or burned in 2002 Biscuit Fire; county and end date disputed; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Register and firelookout.com say the cab was removed or destroyed in 1968; weebly says it was destroyed in the 2002 Biscuit Fire. No source describes the site today.

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 on the ground (FFLOS lists the site as ground type)The design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1940
Height
Unknown
Elevation
4,126 ft (1,258 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Josephine County, Oregon
Coordinates
42.47924, −123.95923
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-silver-peak

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 3.6 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. 1940 BuiltL-4 cab built (register and firelookout.com). Weebly dates the L-4 lookout house to 1941.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1940 EventOne-mile spur trail completed to the lookout (weebly)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1941 BuiltWeebly: L-4 lookout house constructedSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1941 StaffedStaffed 100 days and reported to the Agness Ranger Station (weebly)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1941 and 1962
  6. 1962 EventColumbus Day Storm caused damage to the lookout house (weebly)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1968 RemovedRegister: cab removed in 1968. firelookout.com: destroyed in 1968.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  8. No record between 1968 and 2002
  9. 2002 BurnedWeebly: destroyed in the Biscuit Fire. Register and firelookout.com do not mention this.Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  10. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered March 29, 2011 as FFLOS US 906, OR 273Source: 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.

Silver Peak is a ground-level lookout site in the Siskiyou National Forest, about 17 miles east of Gold Beach.1,2,3

The sources disagree on the county. The register and firelookout.com place it in Josephine County.1,2 A May 1940 newspaper item, quoted by a lookout history site, put the new lookout in Curry County's Agness district.4

The register dates the L-4 cab to 1940.1 The history site says a one-mile spur trail reached the lookout that year, and that the L-4 lookout house was built in 1941.4

In 1941 the lookout was manned for 100 days, with its reports going to the Agness Ranger Station.4

In October 1962 the Columbus Day Storm damaged the lookout house, according to the history site.4

The register says the cab was removed in 1968, and firelookout.com says it was destroyed that year.1,2 The history site instead says it was destroyed in the Biscuit Fire in 2002.4 The fires that became the Biscuit Fire started on July 13, 2002, when lightning from storms over the Siskiyou Mountains ignited five separate fires.5 By early August they had grown together, and the Forest Service dubbed the combined blaze the Biscuit Fire.5 The sources do not agree on how the cab ended, and none explains the gap.

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the site as ground gone.3 No source we read describes what remains there, or whether the public can reach it.

  1. Silver Peak Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/silver-peak-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Silver Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/silverpeak65.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Oregon Lookouts (by County), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/or-co/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Silver Peak - Forest Lookouts, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/silver-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Biscuit Fire of 2002, The Oregon Encyclopedia, https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/biscuit_fire_of_2002/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Silver Peak 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, 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: what it is built of, design, 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.