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Fire lookout · Hood River County, Oregon

Tanner Butte Lookout Site

Hood River County lookout cab built 1931 and removed 1955; a user report says only glass and metal remain, and the trail page lists the route closed.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. Forest Service page lists Tanner Butte Trail #401 as closed due to unstable conditions after the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire; restoration ongoing.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Cab removed or destroyed in 1955; a user report says only a few bits of glass and metal remain on the summit.

Visit & stay

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

Access

Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
From the Wahclella Falls trailhead, a round trip of at least 18 miles, per the Oregon Hikers guide

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab (built 1931)The design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
4,500 ft (1,372 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Mount Hood National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Hood River County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.56663, −121.90735
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-tanner-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. 1927 EventCamp with a telephone set up by the USFS (the register calls it a tent rag camp)Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1931 BuiltL-4 cab built; an October 1931 item reports a new house on the summitSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1937 EventAugust 1937: Forest Service telephone line from Eagle Creek Station due to be completed within three weeks; five other stations to be connected through Eagle Creek and Tanner ButteSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1937 and 1955
  5. 1955 RemovedRegister says removed; firelookout.com says destroyedSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  6. No record between 1955 and 2010
  7. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered 21 September 2010Source: firetower.org
  8. 2017 FireEagle Creek Fire; the Forest Service trail page links it to the trail's unstable conditionsSource: fs.usda.gov
  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.

Tanner Butte is in Hood River County, in the Mount Hood National Forest.1 The first set-up there, in 1927, was a camp with a telephone, which the register calls a "tent rag camp."1 An L-4 cab replaced it in 1931.1,2

In October 1931 an item quoted from Six Twenty-Six reported that the summit now had a new house.3 Lookouts also knew the peak as Bughouse Butte, and the writer praised Tom Brown's rock work, carpentry and painting.3

In August 1937 the Bonneville Dam Chronicle reported that a new Forest Service phone line from Eagle Creek Station would be finished within three weeks.3 The line was to connect Tanner Butte with five other stations, including Larch Mountain and Nesmith Point, through Eagle Creek.3

The register says the cab was removed in 1955.1 Firelookout.com says it was destroyed that year.2

A SummitPost user report describes evidence that a fire lookout once stood on the summit, but says only a few bits of glass and metal are left.4 No source describes a structure standing there today.

The Oregon Hikers guide describes a 360-degree view from the top that takes in five Cascade volcanoes.5 One route starts at the Wahclella Falls trailhead and is a minimum 18-mile round trip out and back.5 The same guide says the older Tanner Creek Road, which gave closer access, was closed by the Forest Service because of misuse, including illegal dumping and target shooting.5

The Forest Service trail page lists Tanner Butte Trail #401 as closed because of unstable conditions after the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire, with restoration still underway.6 The Oregon Hikers guide also labels the hike "Closed."5 Check the current closure before planning a trip.

  1. Tanner Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/tanner-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Tanner Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/tannerbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Tanner Butte - FOREST LOOKOUTS (extracts from Six Twenty-Six, 1931, and The Bonneville Dam Chronicle, 1937), oregonlookouts.weebly.com, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/tanner-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Tanner Butte, SummitPost, https://www.summitpost.org/tanner-butte/153319 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Tanner Butte, Oregon Hikers field guide, https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guide/Tanner_Butte (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  6. Tanner Butte Trail #401, Mt. Hood National Forest, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r06/mthood/recreation/trails/tanner-butte-trail-401 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Tanner Butte Lookout Site
Photo: 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, 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

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