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Fire lookout · Grant County, Oregon

Thorn Creek Lookout Site

Also known as Thorn Creek Butte

Malheur NF ground site, Thorn Creek Butte, Grant County, OR; L-4 cab dated 1933 or 1934, removed or destroyed in 1958; 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 in 1958; a 1958 USGS recovery note says the tower was destroyed. No source describes the site now.

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 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,034 ft (1,534 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Malheur National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Grant County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.28285, −119.35417
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-thorn-creek

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 3.8 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. 1933 BuiltDeveloped in 1933 with an L-4 cab, per the register and firelookout.comSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1933 EventForest Service survey description (1933) places the survey point on a truck roadSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1934 BuiltOregon Lookouts page dates an L-4 ground house to 1934; conflicts with the 1933 dateSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1935 EventPanorama photographs taken by Osborne (September 30, 1935)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1938 AlteredMalheur National Forest asked to build a garage and storage building at the lookout (memo of May 10, 1938); approvedSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1940 AlteredCamp Canyon Creek constructing a garage at the Thorn Butte lookout (John Day Valley Ranger report, August 2, 1940)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. No record between 1940 and 1958
  8. 1958 DestroyedUSGS recovery note (1958): lookout tower destroyed and the USFS survey mark not recovered; conflicts with 'removed'Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  9. 1958 RemovedRegister and firelookout.com: cab removed in 1958 after several years of abandonmentSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  10. No record between 1958 and 2011
  11. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered July 18, 2011 as FFLOS US 1094, OR 451Source: firetower.org
  12. 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.

Thorn Creek Butte, in Grant County, Oregon, carried a lookout on the Malheur National Forest, about 22 miles southwest of John Day.1,2 The register and firelookout.com both date its L-4 cab to 1933, but an Oregon lookouts history gives 1934 for an "L-4 ground house."2,1,3

Panorama photographs were taken there in 1935.3 In 1938 the Malheur asked to build a garage and storage building at the site, and the request was approved.3 In August 1940 a Canyon Creek camp was building a garage at the lookout.3

Both the register and firelookout.com say the cab was removed in 1958, after the site had been left unused for several years.2,1 A 1958 recovery note, labelled on the Oregon Lookouts page as a U.S. Geological Survey note, says the tower was destroyed and the Forest Service survey mark was not found.3

A 1933 Forest Service survey description says the point lies on a truck road.3 The register lists the spot as a former site, administered by the U.S. Forest Service.2 No source describes what, if anything, remains at the site today, or whether the ground is open to visitors.

  1. Thorn Creek Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/thorncreek.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Thorn Creek Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/thorn-creek-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Thorn Creek Butte, Oregon Lookouts, with National Geodetic Survey station notes, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/thorn-creek-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Thorn Creek 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

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