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Fire lookout · Deschutes County, Oregon

Tumalo Mountain Lookout Site

Deschutes NF volcano lookout 16 mi WSW of Bend: 1913 alidade on a stump, a 1930s cab (or 1948 one-room house per Rex), removed in the 1970s; no site remains described.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed in the 1970s per the register; firelookout.com says destroyed then; Wikipedia says abandoned in the 1970s and later removed

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Wikipedia describes a hiking route up the southwest flank to the summit; no source read gives closures or land-status limits

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Wikipedia describes a route up the volcano's southwest flank to the top; no trailhead or distance given

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Two-story buildingtwo-story L-4 cab (1930s, per the register and firelookout.com); 14x14 one-room ready-cut house announced August 1948 and under construction that month (per Rex's page)The design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1930
Height
16 ft (4.9 m)
Elevation
7,775 ft (2,370 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Deschutes National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Deschutes County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.00387, −121.64200
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-tumalo-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 3.6 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. 1913 EventAlidade set up on a stump; register says it was replaced in the 1930sSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1913 and 1930
  3. 1930 BuiltTwo-story L-4 cab per the register and firelookout.com; sources give only the 1930s, so 1930 is a decade placeholderSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1930 and 1948
  5. 1948 BuiltNew one-room ready-cut 14x14 house announced August 13, 1948; construction started that month (August 25, 1948 item), per Bend Bulletin items quoted on Rex's pageSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1948 StaffedW.T. Curtis lookout-fireman, splitting duties with Wanoga ButteSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. No record between 1948 and 1968
  8. 1968 AbandonedSeptember 15, 1968: firefinder and portable gear removed; lookout no longer needed for its designed purposeSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  9. 1970 RemovedRegister says removed in the 1970s; firelookout.com says destroyed in the 1970s; Wikipedia says abandoned in the 1970s and removed; 1970 is a decade placeholderSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, en.wikipedia.org
  10. No record between 1970 and 2010
  11. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered December 6, 2010Source: 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.

Tumalo Mountain is a shield volcano in the Cascade Range, located just northeast of Mount Bachelor, and it stands in the Deschutes National Forest about 16 miles west-southwest of Bend.1,2 The register says a sighting instrument, an alidade, was set on a stump there in 1913, and that a two-story L-4 cab took its place in the 1930s.3,1

Rex's lookout page does not mention that cab.4 Its entries instead describe a new one-room house, 14 by 14 feet, announced in August 1948 and started that month, and say the lookout's headquarters were then in a tent-house.4 The sources do not settle whether the 1930s cab stood before the 1948 house.

A 1948 entry names W.T. Curtis as lookout-fireman, who divided his time between this station and Wanoga Butte.4

In September 1968 the firefinder and anything portable were taken off the lookout, which was no longer needed for the job it was built to do.4 The register says the lookout was removed in the 1970s, and firelookout.com says it was destroyed in that decade.3,1 Wikipedia says the tower was left unused in the 1970s and later taken down.2 Rex's entry records the equipment leaving in 1968, while the other sources date the structure's end to the 1970s, so these may describe different steps.3,4,1,2

No source we read describes what remains on the summit today. Wikipedia describes a route up the volcano's southwest flank to the top.2 We found no source giving a trailhead, a closure or a land-status limit, so check with the Deschutes National Forest before you go.

  1. Tumalo Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/tumalomtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Tumalo Mountain, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumalo_Mountain (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Tumalo Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/tumalo-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Tumalo Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Oregon), Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/tumalo-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Tumalo Mountain Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Tumalo Mountain Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Tumalo Mountain Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Tumalo Mountain 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: height, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.