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Fire lookout · Wallowa County, Oregon

Square Mountain Lookout Site

Wallowa lookout: a 24-foot pole L-4 tower built in 1941, removed in 1952; one named lookout and no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed in 1952 per the register; firelookout.com says destroyed that year

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 tower24-foot pole tower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1941
Height
24 ft (7.3 m)
Elevation
4,748 ft (1,447 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Wallowa-Whitman National Forest per the register; Wallowa National Forest per Forest Lookouts)
Land
Federal land
Location
Wallowa County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.74683, −116.68435
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-square-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 3.9 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. 1941 Built24-foot pole L-4 tower, per the register and firelookout.comSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1941 First staffedDuley Dale of Enterprise, first and only lookout to man the tower, per Forest Lookouts; firelookout.com dates Dale to 1942-1943Sources: oregonlookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
  3. 1943 Last staffedfirelookout.com lists Dale for 1942-1943, which conflicts with the 1941 dateSource: firelookout.com
  4. 1952 RemovedRegister says removed; firelookout.com says destroyed in 1952Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  5. No record between 1952 and 2011
  6. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered August 21, 2011 on the Former Fire Lookout Sites registerSource: firetower.org
  7. 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.

Square Mountain lies in Wallowa County, north of Fingerboard Saddle, between Cow Creek and the Snake River.1,2 The register says a 24-foot pole L-4 tower was built there in 1941.1 Firelookout.com gives the same height and year.3

Only one lookout is named for the site, Duley Dale of Enterprise.3,2 The Forest Lookouts history calls Dale the sole lookout ever to staff the tower, and says 1941 was the only year anyone was assigned there.2 Firelookout.com instead lists Dale for 1942 and 1943 and spells the name Duly, so the dates conflict.3

The register says the tower was removed in 1952.1 Firelookout.com says it was destroyed that year.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the site as gone.4

No source we found describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether the public can reach it.

  1. Square Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/square-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Square Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/square-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Square Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/squaremtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Oregon Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/ (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, ownership, 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: 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.