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Fire lookout · Lake County, Oregon

Sixteen Butte Lookout Site

Deschutes NF, Lake County, OR: L-4 cab built 1931; site gone, but the cab was moved to Fox Butte in 1948 and stood there on a 2021 visit.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The Sixteen Butte site is gone. Its L-4 cab was moved to Fox Butte in 1948 and was still there at a 2021 visit, in disrepair.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. The cab is at Fox Butte, where the road is locked about three-quarters of the way up; a 2021 visitor walked the rest. No source describes access to the Sixteen Butte site.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab on the ground at the Sixteen Butte site; moved to Fox Butte in 1948The design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,674 ft (1,729 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Lake County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.59030, −120.93288
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-sixteen-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 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. 1931 BuiltL-4 cab built (register). Bend Bulletin item: lookout houses built in the 1931 field season, including Sixteen Butte (weebly).Sources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1931 EventApril 1931: Fox Butte fireman to be shifted to Sixteen Butte. May 1931: lookout road up the butte completed (weebly).Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1931 and 1948
  4. 1948 MovedL-4 cab moved from Sixteen Butte to Fox Butte; it is the present ground cabin there (register, firelookout.com, NHLR Fox Butte)Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, nhlr.org
  5. No record between 1948 and 2011
  6. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered June 10, 2011 as FFLOS US 1043, OR 401Source: firetower.org
  7. 2021 Event2021 visit: cabin at Fox Butte had fallen into disrepair. The account says the Forest Service had proposed removing the tower and cabin.Source: cherylhill.net
  8. 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.

Sixteen Butte lies in the Deschutes National Forest, in Lake County, Oregon. The site was a ground-level lookout.1,2

The register says an L-4 cab went up there in 1931.1 A Bend newspaper item from early 1932, quoted by a lookout history site, names Sixteen Butte among the lookouts put up during the 1931 season.3 In April 1931 the same paper said the Fox Butte fireman would be moved to Sixteen Butte.3 A May 1931 item reported that the road climbing the butte had been finished.3

The cab was moved to Fox Butte in 1948.1,4 The National Historic Lookout Register's Fox Butte entry says the cabin standing there, a gable-roofed L-4 on the ground, came from Sixteen Butte that year.5

The Sixteen Butte site itself is listed as ground gone. No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the summit.2

The cab was still at Fox Butte on a 2021 visit, and by then it had fallen into disrepair.6 The road to Fox Butte was locked about three-quarters of the way up, so the visitor walked the last 1.1 miles.6 The visitor went up the tower only to its first landing and was not sure how safe the rest was.6 That same account says the Forest Service had proposed removing both the tower and the cabin.6 We did not check that proposal's later status. No source says the Fox Butte tower or cabin is open to visitors.

  1. Sixteen Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/sixteen-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Oregon Lookouts (by County), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/or-co/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Sixteen Butte - Forest Lookouts, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/sixteen-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Sixteen Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/sixteenbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Fox Butte Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/or/fox-butte-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  6. Fox Butte - Every Lookout in Oregon, cherylhill.net, https://cherylhill.net/firelookouts/2021/06/15/fox-butte/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Sixteen Butte Lookout panoramic 6-24-1933
Sixteen Butte Lookout panoramic 6-24-1933 (1933)Photo: National Archives-Pacific Northwest Region, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Sixteen Butte Lookout site 2006
Sixteen Butte Lookout site 2006 (2006)Photo: Ron Kemnow, 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, access, 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

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